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Is it WP:SYNTH to make an article on the Indo-Canadian population in Greater Vancouver separate from that of the Indo-Canadian population of British Columbia?

Related to the RFC at: Talk:Indo-Canadians#Merge_discussion: On whether Indo-Canadians in British Columbia and Indo-Canadians in Greater Vancouver be separate or should the latter be merged into the former...

Would it count as WP:SYNTH to have a dedicated article on the Indo-Canadian population of Metro Vancouver? (Vancouver, Surrey, and other Vancouver suburbs). There are books, articles, etc. focusing on Indo-Canadians in Metro Vancouver and there are books, articles, etc. focusing on Indo-Canadians in British Columbia. A Wikipedia editor believes that the Indo-Canadian communities in Metro Vancouver cannot be separated from those elsewhere in the province and therefore it's not appropriate to have a separate article focusing on those from Vancouver. WhisperToMe (talk) 06:19, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

That the query here can't even get the proper usage re Greater Vancouver correct for starters, "A wikipedia editor" who's from British Columbia and had lived in Greater Vancouver and the Lower Mainland for 40 years is who is saying that the history and society of Indo-Canadians and any other ethnic group in Vancouver can NOT be treated separately - as is being touted here by someone who didn't know anything about BC, or even the right term to use for Indo-Canadians, less than two weeks ago. \
Claiming that they can and should be treated separately is completely original research/synth and is being advanced by somebody without any deep knowledge of BC, of Indo-Canadian history/society, based apparently on cursory reading of titles only. The "in BC" title was seemingly created to prevent me moving the "in GV" title there asI I had done with another of his creations, formerly Germans in Vancouver.
Right now, though my original opposition to a separate "Asian Indians in Vancouver" title from the national Indo-Canadians title was the foundation of the merge discussion in question, with the huge amount of work this earnest young editor has amassed in the course of a mere few scant days, the more obvious POV fork separating/claiming that writing about "in BC" so as to include Greater Vancouver would be "original research" is the opposite of the case; in reality writing about such topics so as to limit them to Vancouver or Greater Vancouver as though they were separate or separable from BC-at-large contexts titling is where the original research lies. "but but but but" by pointing at and adding up titles to provide justification for this sophomoric separation is clear evidence of SYNTH;' not listening to but repeatedly rejecting the advice of a local editor of long standing is AGF, pure and simple; not listening to reason while scurrying around to find/fit guidelines and misuses of sources to justify bad ideas....well, that's just purely wikipedian. Skookum1 (talk) 07:07, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Skookum has a point does he not?♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:46, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I understand what his point is, but I believe his assertions are not supported by the literature. Take a look at these statistics on the Indo-Canadians in Vancouver:
  • International Journal of Punjab Studies, Volume 2. Sage Publications, 1995. p. 178. "[...]and also in the two largest populations of Sikhs outside of India — in Britain, in London, and in Canada, in Vancouver."
  • Tucker, Alan. The Penguin Guide to Canada. Penguin Books, 1991. p. 539. "Vancouver has the largest overseas community of South Asians (from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka — many by way of Uganda or Fiji) outside of London, and the largest Sikh community outside of India." - See search page
  • Todd, Douglas. "Mapping our ethnicity Part 1: South Asia in Surrey" (Archive). Vancouver Sun. May 2, 2012. Retrieved on October 23, 2014. "West Newton is where Metro Vancouver’s main annual Vaisakhi parade draws hundreds of thousands of Sikh and Hindu celebrants. It’s among the largest South Asian diaspora communities on the planet — second only to enclaves in London."
Second largest South Asian/Sikh diaspora after London... Those are some serious assertions of independent notability, aren't they?
When discussing the Irish immigration to New York state, would it be fair to say that New York City has its own distinct aspects of Irish immigration? Surely Irish people went elsewhere in the state. Surely Irish immigration elsewhere in the state can be discussed. That doesn't mean we should trash Irish in New York City which survived AFD back in 2007.
Wikipedia is not based not on the personal experiences of its editors. Let's take a look at WP:V: "Its content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors." - That's the reason why Skookum's argument is flawed. It is based on his experiences and beliefs and not what the literature actually says.
WhisperToMe (talk) 14:33, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
Geezus "notability" is NOT the issue here, the context of the article is the issue; I've made that point over and over again and been buried by presumptions and dismissals and "refusing to listen" to an informed local. Indo-Canadian Surrey and Indo-Canadian Abbotsford, so to speak, cannot be separated as topics, for example. But tell that to someone who less than ten days had never heard of either place, much less knew the right term to use; plus condescending and patronizing lines like placate Skookum to show I'm not ignoring the rest of the province. (that was an early objection from him)..."early objection" being less than a few days ago, and in fact I'd commented on his ignorance of the rest of the province. More condescension: "why Skookum's argument is flawed. It is based on his experiences and beliefs and not what the literature actually says." My almost-59 years of experience but what I'm talking about is not BELIEFS which is utterly ludicrous to state; I'm talking facts; if the literature and its titling focus on the province's main metropolis is one thing, pretending that my informed advice is "flawed" when you're a complete neophyte on (a) Indo-Canadians and (b) British Columbia is insulting rubbish. I advised you that a province-wide article was the way to go rather than one limited to Greater Vancouver (actually your original title used "Vancouver" only) and you not only ignored me and went and created a POV fork and now are stonewalling and forum-shopping to maintain your agenda...which seems to be WP:OWN, over and and over again. Given your userpage says you are a "Young Adult" it seems that I am around FORTY YEARS OLDER THAN YOU, grew up in a town and went to a high school with many Indo-Canadians in it (Mission) your comments about my "experience and beliefs" being admissible is immature and pretentious beyond belief. You have commandeered a major topic and presumed to author it yourself, so rapidly I must wonder, in fact, about COPYVIO.....Skookum1 (talk) 15:00, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
More and more I'm of the opinion there should be a "knowledge test" and "logic test" for becoming an admin.... as well as basic courtesy rather than fake wikiquette...such as "respecting your elders".Skookum1 (talk) 15:04, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
If an article concept has independent notability then it should get its own article period.
Sir, your experiences are also not what determines the content of the articles: WP:V: "Its content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors." I think it's very regrettable that your argument is that your view is better because of who you are, not because of any reliable sources that have presented. This goes against the very principle of WP:V where who you are does not matter.
If you think there's a copyvio, please look at the sources and compare them to the article, and you tell me what they are. You can ask any people good at checking the sources and comparing them to the articles. Why not ask User:Moonriddengirl? She's very good at checking for these things so have her check Indo-Canadians in Greater Vancouver and Indo-Canadians in British Columbia. If you can't find any and if she can't find any, then that's that. I am very cautious and careful about avoiding close paraphrasing and I try my best to avoid it. If you cannot find any instances of COPYVIO, kindly stop the accusations. @Moonriddengirl:
WhisperToMe (talk) 15:14, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
I find it "very disturbing" that someone who only found out about the proper term to use had commandeered a major topic by loading up on sources he's found without fully reading them, and ignoring advice on where and how to find other sources as to where to look for items on IC's beyond Greater Vancouver, and pompously lecturing me and patronizing me over and over again. I am not in range of any BC libraries (he knows I'm in Cambodia) and he's spent day and night for week "advancing his obstinacy" and making demands on my time that I do what he says WHY should I do that? If he wanted helpdoing the research he should have done before starting these articles at all he should have been more open to input from somebody actually FROM the places he's talking about. There are many aspects to this subject you have no clue about yet, some of the very politically volatile (e.g. Indo-Canadian crime for starters) ' IO referred you to local histories (meaning those of BC's other large centres, many of which have notable Indo-Canadian populations intrinsically connected to those in the Lower Mainland (Greater Vancouver/Fraser Valley); that I can't respond to your snap-of-the-fingers "show it to me now [or I'll file a requsted move it back where I created it at) is yet more wiki-arrogance.Skookum1 (talk) 15:24, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
WP:RX and http://reddit.com/r/scholar (no, that's not using Reddit as a source) can help you get whatever you need.
Now, I must defend WP:V as a core principle of this project. Thank you.
WhisperToMe (talk) 15:35, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Staying on topic, I think using the books of Kamala Elizabeth Nayar can find non-OR ways of distinguishing rural BC Indo-Canadians and Vancouver Indo-Canadians. This is one piece of evidence I have:

The Punjabis in British Columbia: p. [1]: "There is a striking difference between Skeena Punjabis and urban Punjabis with respect to the fourth stage[...]For Punjabis living in large Canadian urban centres like Toronto and Vancouver,[...]On the other hand, for those living in the Skeena region,[...]"
She talks about the differences between urban and rural Indo-Canadians. She hasn't said "Vancouver" in isolation (she says it as an example of a large Canadian urban center) but I'll comb her works with a fine brush and see what I can find.

WhisperToMe (talk) 15:47, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

 Comment: As I thought: Nayar's book makes a point of specifically comparing Indo-Canadians in Vancouver to Indo-Canadians in Skeena.

  • The Punjabis in British Columbia: p. xx.
    • "Not only do these internal migrants now face the hererogeneity of the Vancouver Punjabi community, but they encounter a different experience of multiculturalism from the one they encountered in Skeena."
    • "[...]this study should prove useful not only to members of the Punjabi community in Canada, but also to Canadians in general because it provides a more comprehensive understanding of the socio-cultural and econoic dynamics of the Punjabi community in the Skeena region of northwestern BC and Metro Vancouver."

Now we have a book which intentionally discusses Vancouver in isolation and compares it to another BC community. The same person wrote a Vancouver-specific book, The Sikh Diaspora in Vancouver: Three Generations Amid Tradition, Modernity, and Multiculturalism. You can see a preview of the book. In fact:

  • The preface in p. xi says: "This study examines the Sikh community's process of adaptation to Canadian society in Vancouver." and "Especially so, because the Sikh community in Vancouver is unique among South Asian communities in that many of its members hail from an agricultural society."

WhisperToMe (talk) 15:52, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

 Comment: Nayar, The Sikh Diaspora in Vancouver, p. 201: "In contrast to Sikhs in Vancouver, which has a large Sikh community, [sic] Sikhs in small towns throughout British Columbia interact far more with other communities." and "The Vancouver Sikh community is more insulated from the mainstream and is networked according to village and clan ties (partic-[...]" (don't have the preview for p. 202-203) - If Nayar is making Vancouver Sikhs to be distinct, then it's not SYNTH to write an article specifically about the habits of Vancouver Sikhs. WhisperToMe (talk) 16:44, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

 Comment: Here is something interesting:

  • Nayar, The Sikh Diaspora in Vancouver, p. 211. "Those who have been raised in Vancouver, who have experienced the world basically confined to that city, view multiculturalism as 'how things are' and 'necessarily good' because it allows people to keep their culture[...]In contrast, those who have lived elsewhere - be it in England, Singapore, Hong Kong, small B.C. towns, or the United States - assess multiculturalism more critically." - Again, making Vancouver Sikhs a distinct topic
  • Now here: Nayar, The Punjabis in British Columbia, p. 286-287. "Nayar's social-anthropological study - on the multifaceted process of the Vancouver Sikh community's adaptation[...]the Canadian-born generation living in Vancouver whose antecedents had originally settled in rural BC tended to assess Canada's policy of multiculturalism more critically than those born and raised in BC's Lower Mainland." - This is referring to the previous book The Sikh Diaspora in Vancouver and is in the footnotes.

WhisperToMe (talk) 17:19, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

  • there does not appear to be SYN issue - multiple reliable sources specifically discussing population distinctions. The question is: "Can this aspect be covered appropriately in the 'parent level article' without creating an WP:UNDUE weight to the distinctions, or are there sufficient sources to create a valid spin out?" Wikipedia generally favors the spin out where there are sufficient sources to create content more than a stub paragraph, which appears to be the case here. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:32, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
I agree that this isn't a synth/OR problem. I think that Skookum1 is not being very civil, and that his arguments from personal experience are obviously spurious, at its core the dispute isn't about original research, just demarcation. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 19:40, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
A new section was started on the talk page regarding "POV fork" Talk:Indo-Canadians_in_Greater_Vancouver#This is all the more reason for there to NOT be two articles. @Skookum1: WhisperToMe (talk) 06:21, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
Denouncing my local knowledge and long wiki experience with BC history and geography articles, calling my arguments "spurious" is beneath comment; WTM has been arguing that his reading of titles (bear in mind there's now way he's read all the content of the masses of titles he's assembled in the last couple of week) to insist that Greater Vancouver Indo-Canadians be separately treated from non-Greater Vancouver (i.e. rest of British Columbia) because of his interpretations of lines like the one about small towns; Nanaimo and Abbotsford and Prince George are not "small towns"; and Abbotsford's Indo-Canadian community, like Mission's and Chilliwack's, is tied into that of Surrey and South Vancouver. "Small towns" means places like Gold River, Cowichan Lake, Campbell River and tinier places; WMT's interest in urban-only ethnic articles has seen him look for justification simply by scanning titles and apparent content, without actually knowing about the scope of BC geography to know what are appropriate division lines and, indeed, what is or is not "urban" and what and what is not "small town". Trying to reduce this argument here as dismissive of my informed advice as irrelevant to someone's scan of titles and loose grasp of the local reality as "OR" when in reality it is OR to use a scan of titles to justify and artificial separation of non-"Vancouver" articles, claiming some weird incarnation of UNDUE to also claim materials on Indo-Canadians limited to Greater Vancouver would be overwhelmed - how can he know, since his acquaintance with this topic, or anything about BC, or even the proper term to use, is less than a month old? And yes, it's about demarcation; there is nothing original research about my advice - and action - that this topic should take in the whole of British Columbia's Indo-Canadian experience, not segregate it based on some sole wikipedian's selection of literature on the subject; and if there is such a small amount of non-GV material, then there is no reason to segregate it in a splinter article, and that is a POV fork.

It's not like I can't produce reams of sources for Indo-Canadian history within local histories of BC, to dispute this b.s. about my informed input being OR, vs a neophyte on BC's scan of titles forming some logic in his mind that he assumes he's right but in reality had his mind made up all along. Rejecting advice (and correction of terms) about context and geography, he has turned to being dismissive of me, personally, in complete lack of good faith (or respect for someone from the place he's presuming to write about).

Being stubborn against informed advice is also UNCIVIL, no matter how seemingly politely put; WMT has been resistant to my input from the start, including arguing that his choice of original title was valid and that Canadian usages didn't count. The problem of the Abbotsford-Surrey connection (which is very strong) and the whole of Indo-Canadian life in the Lower Mainland (and Squamish, which is not part of the Lower Mainland but next to it) is not properly dealt with by WTM's obstinate rejection that the subject, despite his choice of titles to back up his assertions, can NOT be properly demarcated by the boundary of the city of Vancouver, by the boundary/definition of Greater Vancouver; it could be by titling Indo-Canadians in the Lower Mainland but I avoided that title because of the lack of familiarity of that term even in the rest of Canada; and did not see how or why the large Indo-Canadian element on Vancouver Island or in Prince George or the Okanagan could or should be omitted; even using the sources he's come up with. He uses the "small towns" argument without even knowing BC enough to know that Greater Vancouver isn't the only city, or what "small towns" means in the BC context.

The issue here is indeed of demarcation, and endless arenas of discussion have been made where WMT has been forum-shopping his argument; tell it often enough, it still will not make it true, or useful. This shouldn't be decided on titles of sources as if that's all that counted; claiming that it is, that is original research. A lot of the rest is just stubborn AGF.Skookum1 (talk) 14:49, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

It would have been helpful had the thread begun with a list of sources for "Indo-Canadians in Greater Vancouver." The sources I have seen presented here are two sources that refer to the number of Sikhs and South Asians in Vancouver, and articles/books about South Asians in Surrey and Sikhs in Vancouver. First, the fact a book refers to the number of Sikhs and South Asians in Vancouver does not establish notability as a topic. It could be the article about South Asians in Surrey justifies an article about South Asians in Surrey, but it appears to be a one off study. The wealth of sources about Sikhs in Vancouver might justify a separate article about them. But we cannot take a source about South Asians in Surrey and Sikhs in Vancouver and combine them into an article about South Asians in Greater Vancouver. So far the notability of the topic has not been established, no source has been presented that does that. TFD (talk) 15:25, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
@The Four Deuces: - Here's an entire bibliography that has works on British Columbia in general and the Vancouver area in particular. It's been established that:
Also consider definitions - more or less "Indo-Canadian" and "South Asian" have the similar/same meaning:
  • South Asian: "'South Asians' is a very broad category as it refers to people originally in the geographical area of South Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. 'South Asians' also refers to Indians who have migrated to other parts of the world such as Fiji, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and East Africa."
  • Indo-Canadian: "The term 'Indo-Canadians' came into use in the 1980s as a result of the Canadian government's policy and ideology of multiculturalism. It refers to Canadian-born people whose origins are on the Indian subcontinent."
  • East Indian: "The term “East Indian” is generally used in Canada to refer to “people whose roots are specifically in India”"
Is this enough or do you want more?
WhisperToMe (talk) 16:45, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
His original title was just re "Vancouver" and he argued that that meant, for every intents an purposes, Surrey and Richmond also in "global terms", and indeed globally, for simplicity, someone from Coquitlam might say when answering "where are you from?" while somewhere else, "Vancouver". But it is not correct in Wikipedia terms, as we do have existing parameters to distinguish between the CoV proper and Greater Vancouver which need to be respected (likewise the oft-fudged distinction between Greater Vancouver - the place - and Metro Vancouver - the dba name of the regional district government); but these existing wiki-geography conventions were not respected, or I suppose even known about, and were actually belittled by referring to foreign sources making general references as more valid than input from someone familiar with the local reality and with the wiki-precedents; for some foreign sources Whistler is also Vancouver, and some of them even think Vancouver is on "Victoria Island". Your point about tieing together articles on Surrey with articles on South Vancouver and SYNTHing that to justify a separate "[Greater] Vancouver" article is well-taken, and applies also to my issue about that title not including Abbotsford-Mission and Chilliwack,which are part of the sam regional Indo-Canadian community as Newton (Surrey) and South Van et al; also the spurious reading of "small towns" to mean "everywhere that is not Vancouver" and the unsubstantiated claim that there's not enough on non-Vancouver topics to give them enough presence in the article sufficient to outweigh the UNDUE bulk about Vancouver....well, if you limit your search to Vancouver-only sources no wonder that would happen. A broader view of Indo-Canadian BC is needed; but being ardently resisted by someone who just found out the right term to use and has only just started reading up about BC, Indo-Canadian or otherwise.Skookum1 (talk) 05:23, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
Another example of using isolated quotes from sources to SYNTH-justify the "two articles" position is the bit about "Skeena":
"Not only do these internal migrants now face the hererogeneity of the Vancouver Punjabi community, but they encounter a different experience of multiculturalism from the one they encountered in Skeena
Aside from commenting that "in the Skeena region" or "in the Skeena Country" or "in the Skeena Valley" is the proper usage (find me "Skeena" on the map as a standalone proper name, you won't), there is no way that comparison serves as justification for separating "Vancouver" content from the rest of BC; rather the opposite, in demonstrating the need for a provincially comprehensive focus to the subject at hand, not one rigidly limited to [Greater] Vancouver. All this would be obvious to a British Columbian, but that very credential has seen me denounced as "original research" as if worthless. There is no logic to any of the long list of examples/arguments posted here, which he has also wallpaper on half-a-dozen other pages including the merge discussions he's choked with them.Skookum1 (talk) 05:29, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
I know this is a bit off topic, but regarding: "Aside from commenting that "in the Skeena region" or "in the Skeena Country" or "in the Skeena Valley" is the proper usage" - How do we know that?
" also the spurious reading of "small towns" to mean "everywhere that is not Vancouver" " - There is no "spurious reading" of such, because the "small towns" means whatever Kamala Elizabeth Nayar means are "small towns" - and she's not meaning Abbotsford or Victoria, but places which do have small numbers of people. There never was any attempt to say that places like Abbotsford or Victoria were "small towns".
If a book author distinguishes it/says it's separate (Greater Vancouver from "rural BC" which does not include and does not have to include non-rural areas), it's not SYNTH (one person saying it's separate = acknowledgement that it is separate). it's a done deal.
"in demonstrating the need for a provincially comprehensive focus to the subject at hand, not one rigidly limited to [Greater] Vancouver." - A provincially comprehensive focus is already possible at Indo-Canadians in British Columbia and it can be properly developed as such. It cannot tilt too much towards Vancouver or include too specific information.
WhisperToMe (talk) 17:02, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
"well, if you limit your search to Vancouver-only sources no wonder that would happen. " - I have enough "Vancouver-only sources" for 65,299 bytes of content (although it's not only readable prose) and the BC article has 37,650 bytes of content (although it's not only readable prose) - Do the math. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:00, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
Using: User:Shubinator/DYKcheck#Prose_length: Indo-Canadians in Greater Vancouver is "21971 characters (3477 words) "readable prose size"" and Indo-Canadians in British Columbia is "12516 characters (1960 words) "readable prose size"" WhisperToMe (talk) 18:08, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

STOP - this is getting disruptive. The two of you are not going to convince each other that "I am right and you are wrong". Your argument has now spiraled onto at least three separate pages. PICK ONE... form an RFC in which you each state your position as best you can... and then shut up and let others comment. Blueboar (talk) 18:29, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

There is an ongoing RFC here: Talk:Indo-Canadians#Merge_discussion. How is this place? WhisperToMe (talk) 18:34, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
You opened TWO discussions here about this, and you have created multiple discussions on multiple talkpages, and invoked an RfC on the merge discussion you thwarted by ref-dumping and your ongoing circular arguments. I'm not the one being disruptive, and I'm not the one who brought this here (twice). You continue to promote your own misinterpretations/logics/extrapolations from what you have read so far, and continue to be dismissive towards input from someone who knows the geography. Being disruptive was you, making the second, unnecessary title, based on geographic divisions you don't even understand on a subject you've barely gotten your feet wet in. This board was never the appropriate place for this, and your original research/synth is a far bigger problem than you dumping on me for not out-reffing you; and yet all those links you wouldn't even have found without my correcting of your initial incorrect title/term. The division between Greater Vancouver and the rest of British Columbia is your own device, it's not borne out by your claims as to what the sources' titles and selected quotes mean, and you have obstinately rejected any discussion, rather sought to carpet-bomb discussion boards rather than listen. I repeat, I'm not the one being disruptive, I'm not the one committing SYNTH, I'm not the one reading things into WP:V/RS that aren't there (e.g. about "Skeena" and "small towns"), nor am I the one making the same arguments in ten different places where they don't belong.Skookum1 (talk) 02:50, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Should titles/focuses of articles be determined through reliable sources or personal experiences and opinions?

The debate from the section Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#Is_it_WP:SYNTH_to_make_an_article_on_the_Indo-Canadian_population_in_Greater_Vancouver_separate_from_that_of_the_Indo-Canadian_population_of_British_Columbia.3F (regarding the split or merge of Indo-Canadians in Greater Vancouver and Indo-Canadians in British Columbia) has continued. I have not seen a change in how the arguments have played out. I have used the exact titles of Wikipedia:Reliable source publications as my rationale for having the two articles separated (some sources are about Indo-Canadians in Greater Vancouver and some sources are about Indo-Canadians in British Columbia) as well as the content of the said sources as my argument. The other Wikipedian continues to use his personal experiences and opinions as his main argument.

He also proceeded to move a similar article, Chinese in Greater Vancouver, which I created and sourced from various books and articles explicitly about the ethnic Chinese in Greater Vancouver in particular, to Chinese Canadians in British Columbia. Based on the other discussion regarding the Indo-Canadians, the Wikipedian knew that I would be opposed to this move. This is despite the fact that all of the sources I had used until then, including books, journal articles, and newspaper articles, were explicitly about the Chinese in Vancouver in particular and not Chinese in British Columbia in general. This is because he believes from his experiences and from his opinions that it is improper to have a Wikipedia article focusing on an ethnicity in a city in particular as opposed to a province/state/prefecture in general.

To better understand what I mean:

See example of his response to my post pointing out that the South China Morning Post has an entire section on the topic of "Chinese Canadians in Vancouver") - under the title "Hongcouver" - In response he stated "It's a classic example of intl media tub-thumping a cliche that's considered insensitive and not slightly offensive in Vancouver itself; but far be it from you to bother respecting local sensitivities or to show ANY awareness of the local contexts of the stuff you now presume to dictate about." No reliable sources were presented (While it may be true that Vancouver politicians have rallied against the use of "Hongcouver", he did not present any links to sources and I have been unsuccessful in finding any that discuss the BC politicians opposing "Hongcouver"'s use in National Geographic) WhisperToMe (talk) 06:04, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
Consider this quote: Talk:Indo-Canadians_in_Greater_Vancouver#This_is_all_the_more_reason_for_there_to_NOT_be_two_articles
  • "The Indo-Canadian experience and community you only know second-hand through your precious books; I'm personally interconnected to it and, as a long-standing BC editor who's contributed reams to Wikipedia about my home province, know what I'm talking about. YOU don't, no matter how many books or quotes your throw at me....or how many demands you make that *I* go find something to prove *my* case."

Here is my view on the matter: I thought we learned from the Essjay incident that relying only on "authority" and "who you are" was a bad idea and that we should focus on what the references say, with the references determining how the debate goes? In other words: The references determine the focus and title. If the sources have X title, the article has X title.

I thought that WP:V ("Wikipedia does not publish original research. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors.") and Wikipedia:No original research were basic tenets of how we did things on Wikipedia. No matter where you are from or what experiences you have, you must obey these basic policies and use published sources as the basis for what you do on Wikipedia. @Skookum1: WhisperToMe (talk) 05:39, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Is anyone disagreeing with you (other than Skookum1) on the question of whether it would be OR to determine article titles or content based on personal experience? That's pretty much the definition of OR. I'm guessing it's not hard to find a consensus on that. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 11:58, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
The only participant at Talk:Indo-Canadians#Merge_discussion other than Skookum and I was a Wikipedian who stated:
  • "Merge - I think that Indo-Canadians in Greater Vancouver should be merged into Indo-Canadians in British Columbia because their topic are related subjects that have a large overlap, as per WP:MERGE. Vancouver has more than half of the population of British Columbia and I haven't seen strong arguments that sources present the society or history of Indo-Canadians in Vancouver as much different from rest of Indo-Canadians in British Columbia."
AFAIK this post was made before I discovered the Kamala Elizabeth Nayar pages contrasting Vancouver Indo-Canadian life with that of "rural BC" Indo-Canadian life.
WhisperToMe (talk) 14:48, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
It's been several days. I think Moonriddengirl's post explains things very well. In the meantime, after lots of work from my end, the Indo-Canadians in Greater Vancouver article has grown so much. It would tip over the Indo-Canadians in British Columbia article with too much undue weight. WhisperToMe (talk) 13:47, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment I see I was under discussion here but not properly notified, despite a ping that didn't work for some reason (which is not a proper notification per noticeboard guidelines). WMT has started so many discussions across numerous talkpages; including this one about 11, deluging them with the same SYNTH readings of his masses of cites, which in no way could he have possibly digested though using them to pad the articles and talkpages to advance his SYNTH/OR. I see he also presumes that "it's been several days" re the merge post which he follows up with yet another cherry-picked citation to justify what he wants/presumes; the nameless editor he cites there is quite right, "strong arguments that sources present the society or history of Indo-Canadians in Vancouver as much different from rest of Indo-Canadians in British Columbia." and his invocation of Nayar presupposes that anything that's not Greater Vancouver is "rural"; yet more SYNTH, and yet more extrapolation on a subject he's only just found out about and now has taken to WP:OWNership. As per comments on yet other pages in an exchange with {{ping|User:Antidiskriminator]] where the latter anaylzed his conduct and his anti-AGF towards me from the start, whatever others here want to say about my conduct/behaviour need to be reconsidered because of his massive onslaught of FORUMSHOPPING discussions and his BLUDGEONing of all discussions, including telling me on CANTALK that I "have no place here". But apparently massive SYNTH and bulldozing has a place in Wikipedia, and rationalizations to justify that are only more SYNTH; why he is so obsessed with these titles I do not know, he only started fire-bombing them in the last month, has rejected anything I have to say, plus demands I spend time on his behalf finding yet more citations on top of th mountains of them he has amassed, but cannot possibly have read or understood. The urban/rural paradigm he seems to think is important is grossly ill-informed, and he continues to ignore the reality that the very large Indo-Canadian community in Abbotsford-Mission, just outside of Greater Vancouver (which he wants to call "Vancouver") is part of the same subject matter; his creation of Indo-Canadians in British Columbia was solely to prevent me from moving Indo-Canadians in Greater Vancouver (originally titled by him "Asian Indians in Vancouver") to it, as pointed out by Antidiskriminator, as I had done already with his similar stub-startups on Chinese and German Canadians, both of which he presumes to say "in the absence of sources I will file a request to move them back" (to where he started them) - yet he barely knows where to look, other than the random cites he's put in the Chinese Canadian one to pad it out, plus an "indiscriminate collection" of whatever tidbits he's found, plus huge "Terminology" sections which are similar gatherings of indiscrminate information, except he's using them to advance name-disputes, i.e. OR/SYNTH in article space. There are no other "ethnic group by city" or "ethnic group by province" titles out there, other than maybe Anglo-Quebeckers (not an ethnicity btw). His ongoing pretentiousness and bulldozing and patronizing and obstinacy are the real issue here; I almost came to this board before he did, but dislike these arenas and have already too many discussions he's started and deluging to deal with.....I'm done, exhausted and now insulted "you dno't belong here" and feel he should be put to an ANI because of his conduct and his wallpapering of articles and titles with his obsession on these titles; that he's an admin and behaving like this is a joke, quite frankly. Because of him and his onslaughts and "walls of cites" on so many boards I've dewatchlisted WP:CANTALK for the first time since I joined Wikipedia, my own country-wikiproject's talkpage, which he has indundated with his puerile claims and ongoing filibustering, same as he did with the Indo-Canadians merge, which I've also de-watchlisted now because of him....I'v been blocked and threatened with bans for far less, that's for sure. I also am not going to watchlist this; I wasn't invited anyway.....but wanted to have my say and call him on his ongoing SYNTH which he just did above re the Nayar cite; Abbotsford-Mission is not "rural" and it's as much part of Indo-Canadian BC as anything in Greater Vancouver; his demarcation of the geography and society is based on ignorance and is completely OR...and no, I'm not going to spend 24x7 as he has done proving him wrong; anything I come up with he will SYNTH-interpret to suit himself, as he does on every page concerning this and related pages. There is support for the merge I proposed to deal with his GV POV fork title, but it's buried in his Walls-of-Text and masses of cites and ongiong argumentation to the piont that it's ridiculous. IMO he needs disciplining and a t opic ban, and should move onto other parts of the world where he can continue his "business" of writing "ethnicity by city" personal opuses. 13:21, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Various at Homosexuality and Roman Catholicism

The disruption on Homosexuality and Roman Catholicism has really got out of hand, and I can't keep it contained myself. I'd like to draw the attention of other users to edits that eg. follow up a statement cited to a reliable secondary source with "Actually, the source is wrong because..." and attempt to use a news source's reference to a former nun's "vow of chastity", with no mention of her known female partner, as evidence that the sources talking about her lesbianism are wrong. Most recent diff is here.

Designed to remove any ambiguity about tolerance of homosexual orientation proceeding from the 1975 document Persona Humana and prompted by the growing influence of gay-accepting groups and clergy, writes John L. Allen, Jr., the letter was released on 1 October 1986 "in English rather than Italian, suggesting it was aimed especially at the United States".[1]: 201  In reality, it appeared simultaneously on 31 October 1986 in many languages, including Italian and Latin,[2] Italian,[3][4][5] Spanish,[6] and English,[7] as confirmed also by John J. McNeill.[8] [This is part of a persistent campaign to attempt to discredit the Allen source, which is extremely reputable. These editors assume they know better than the Pope's biographer about what took place during the month of October between the letter's completion and publication in the newspapers, and try to use primary sources - as newspapers are when the statement they're citing is "the newspaper published it on..." - to prove that they are right and he is wrong.]
Jeanine Deckers (d. 1985), was known as The Singing Nun or Sœur Sourire, and was a Belgian singer-songwriter and at one time a member of the Dominican Order in Belgium as Sister Luc-Gabrielle. After leaving the order, she began a lesbian relationship with Annie Pécher.[citation needed] [The previous source was deemed not specific enough, and the editor who added it is working on finding the best one to replace it; the fact is out there in many sources]. She herself never admitted being a homosexual,[9] [I can't access this, but it's a low-quality source anyway] and she was said to be maintaining a chaste life.[10] [There is nothing in this source about Pécher, or about Deckers's sexual orientation. If you're using a source that doesn't mention her sexual orientation at all to claim that she wasn't LGBT, you're engaging in original research.]

I would appreciate if other users would step in. There are obviously behavior issues here as well with edit-warring/SPA/stalking/refusal to accept edits from non-straight editors as valid, but I think these users would benefit from getting the explanation of the content issues from other editors as well. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:46, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

"In reality" stands out as inappropriate editorial commentary. As far as I can see, none of the refs cited specifically referred to correcting the previous source, which is what seems to be implied by "in reality". --BoboMeowCat (talk) 01:08, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I'm talking about. If it were another scholarly book that pointed out that Allen had made an error, that would be a completely different situation, but this is just editors trying to synthesize stuff because they think they know better. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:14, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
I accept BoboMeowCat's correction, although I think that the contradiction between Allen's lone statement and the concordant testimony of all other sources should in some way be made explicit (WP:WEIGHT). Is there any problem with the text as it now stands?
Designed to remove any ambiguity about tolerance of homosexual orientation proceeding from the 1975 document Persona Humana and prompted by the growing influence of gay-accepting groups and clergy, writes John L. Allen, Jr., the letter was released on 1 October 1986 "in English rather than Italian, suggesting it was aimed especially at the United States".[1]: 201  On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons appeared on 31 October 1986 in many languages, including Italian and Latin,[11] Italian,[12][13][14] Spanish,[15] and English,[16][8]
Insisting that the cited newspapers and the book by McNeill are all out of step because not in step with Allen is ridiculous, and insisting that they should not even be mentioned is beyond being ridiculous. Esoglou (talk) 08:55, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
Speaking of "behavior issues", I don't think it is at all acceptable to persistently delete from Wikipedia information based on cited reliable sources, in order to present as infallible incontrovertible truth what is stated in a book described by its own author (whom Roscelese presents as "the pope's biographer" rather than simply as the author of a biography of the pope that was not authorized by the pope and, in a sense, is not authorized even by the writer) as unbalanced, ill-informed, and veering off into judgement ahead of sober analysis! Esoglou (talk) 09:04, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
Regarding the second complaint, I don't see on what grounds Roscelese says this book is too low-quality for citing on Wikipedia. Besides, the denial by Deckers that she was a homosexual is reported and indeed expressed more strongly by serious web-published sources (and is accepted by the editors of the French Wikipedia). The fact that a reliable source says Deckers was following a chaste lifestyle does seem relevant to the insertion in Wikipedia of a report that she was in a homosexual relationship. Esoglou (talk) 08:55, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
I don't know anything about this dispute, but that book is probably a reliable resource. I can see why you'd think it might not be - it's written by a television producer who I'm guessing is some sort of Simon Cowell type given that he's on the cover flipping the bird, and Google inaccurately labels the book as "fiction". That said, the publisher seems reliable and the book doesn't seem like a joke. It's even got mainstream media coverage that describes it favorably as a curated collection of stories of "provocateurs". 0x0077BE (talk · contrib) 03:00, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ a b John L. Allen, Benedict XVI: A Biography, Continuum, 2005
  2. ^ L'Osservatore Romano bearing the date 1 November 1986
  3. ^ L'Unità
  4. ^ La Stampa
  5. ^ La Repubblica
  6. ^ ABC
  7. ^ The San Bernardino County Sun, 31 October 1986
  8. ^ a b John J. McNeill, The Church and the Homosexual, Preface to the Fourth Edition
  9. ^ Thierry Ardisson, Cyril Drouhet, Joseph Vebret, Dictionnaire des provocateurs (EDI8 - PLON, 2010, ISBN 978-2-25921285-4)
  10. ^ Gordy, Margaret (8 February 1979). "'Singing Nun' makes comeback". Youngstown Daily Vindicator. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
  11. ^ L'Osservatore Romano bearing the date 1 November 1986
  12. ^ L'Unità
  13. ^ La Stampa
  14. ^ La Repubblica
  15. ^ ABC
  16. ^ The San Bernardino County Sun, 31 October 1986

Should we correct sources?

This is another question that relates to the Electronic cigarette article. The first question I asked here was very helpful, and the understanding I gained about OR and one source vs another that brings me here today.

There is an rfc ongoing on the specific term used to describe what is produced by a e-cigarette. The RFC is here. Its a pretty contested topic. But a concern has come to my mind. Should editors use one source to correct information that the source says is inaccurate, when writing claims based on another source? This is starting to sound more like OR as it goes along and not just rephrasing. The discussion has not turned to the question of if it is OR yet. I would like to confirm that what I think is OR is in fact OR before proceeding.

There are two sentences in the Ultrafine particles subsection of the Health effects section "The aerosol produced from an e-cigarette is frequently but inaccurately called vapor.[2] Technically, a vapor is a substance in the gas phase whereas an aerosol (mist) is a suspension of tiny particles of liquid, solid or both within a gas.[2]" sourced to Cheng, a medical journal review. Can this source be used to change every other claim that uses another word to use aerosol or mist, what Chang and a few other reviews call the correct terms? AlbinoFerret 23:50, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I think the RfC would answer this question, but in general you can't find one source that says one thing is a misnomer and use it to enforce changing everything else. I think it's probably not a big deal either way - vapor is the term people use, and it's used in the sources, so it's obviously not going to cause confusion. I imagine it depends on how technical the article you want it to be and if "aerosol" and "vapor" are going to be essentially considered synonyms. I'm not sure that it's an OR issue, more a source conflict issue. 0x0077BE (talk · contrib) 00:13, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
The answers to the RFC is what has me questioning this. Because Cheng says vapor and aerosol are different. Vapor is a gas state, whereas aerosol is tiny dropplets in gas. Saying vapor is inaccurate and describing a different state. If its different, it cant be a synonym. AlbinoFerret 01:21, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
Just because two things describe different things in one context doesn't mean they can't be synonyms in another context. Consider the word "theory", which has a somewhat precise meaning in philosophy of science and a somewhat less precise meaning in general conversation (Theory vs. Scientific theory). Consider also the term Begging the question, which is the name for a specific logical fallacy (a type of circular reasoning), but in modern parlance "to beg the question" also means "to raise the question". Similarly, my intuition is that people think of a "vapor" as being any sort of visible gaseous matter that is not generated by combustion, including aerosols, so sometimes aerosol and vapor are synonyms, even if the two have mutually exclusive "formal" definitions. That said, if there are many scientific reliable sources referring to the stuff that comes out of an e-cigarette as a vapor (and they are often called "nicotine vaporizers", mind you), and one source saying, "Hey it's not really a vapor", it's quite possible that that pedantic source is not even correct, and may in fact be a fringe viewpoint. 0x0077BE (talk · contrib) 01:41, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for answering the questions, it was better than sticking my foot in my mouth. If you like, please stop by the RFC and comment, we could use all the uninvolved editors we can get to comment. The page is a battleground. AlbinoFerret 02:08, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Spanish profanity

The "owners" of the page are completely oblivious to WP:NOR rules, ignoring my arguments, stonewalling the discussion and revert-warring the deletion of unreferenced text. talk archive shows that over the years several persons expressed their concern about this state of the page; in vain. Please intervene. I don't really care whether the article tells the truth how to say "fuck you" in Spanish in 12 different ways, but rules are rules. -M.Altenmann >t 05:55, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

I replied on the page. Though I tend to agree with your position, both you and Mfarah are almost certainly guilty of engaging in an edit war there. Thankfully, it doesn't seem like the conversation has yet been diverted with a bunch of back-and-forth irrelevancies about who is guiltier of edit warring, though obviously neither of you should perform any more reversions at this point. 0x0077BE (talk · contrib) 19:13, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
So, your comment in talk page was ignored by page owners, just like mine and or several other wikipedians before me. Now what? -M.Altenmann >t 04:22, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
I'll ping them today and specify that I'm ready to remove it. I'll also advertise this conflict on WikiProject Languages and see if we can get a few more eyes on it. If we can't find an acceptable consensus, we can try an RfC. 0x0077BE (talk · contrib) 13:46, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Electronic cigarette, a few questions on original research.

This is a question, and a tricky one. It is not part of a conflict, but it may become one. I am asking this question to find out if what I think is correct and avoid a conflict if I am wrong. I apologize in advance if this is in the wrong place and ask that if it is that someone please direct me to the correct place to ask.

The Electronic cigarette article has information in the article that there are multiple generations of the device. Each generation is very different from those before it using different components and different devices. The medical references state medical conclusions based on study of first generation devices. To my knowledge and extensive reading of the medical journal articles the majority of them are on first generation devices. I know of only one review that discussed the different generations:

  • "Farsalinos KE, Spyrou A, Tsimopoulou K, Stefopoulos C, Romagna G, Voudris V (2014). "Nicotine absorption from electronic cigarette use: Comparison between first and new-generation devices"(#85 in the article references)
  • a report "Hayden McRobbie, National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training, 2014. Electronic cigarettes" (#86 in the article references)

These talk about the different generations, but do not specifically tie conclusions to any generation. The references inside the review and report cite studies that use only first generation devices to come to conclusions. There are presently 158 references in the article, at least half if not more are to medical journal articles.

The questions I have are:

  • Is it OR to look at the references in a journal review article to see what specific hardware was used as the basis of conclusions when a reference number is cited in the journal article citing a study it is based on, and then note in the article what was tested to come to the conclusion?
  • The same question but with journal articles on studies that say in the journal article what hardware was tested.
  • Is it OR to lump all generations of devices in a statement in the WP article by omission of the generation of the hardware tested thereby attributing the findings to all generations?

Thank you for your time. AlbinoFerret 03:09, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

The article should use up to date review articles and then the issue of generations would disappear. The authors would know whether changes in electronic cigarettes would affect the findings. It is OR though to say that the research focused on early versions and therefore might no longer be valid, unless the review article says that. The WP:MEDRS guidelines might be helpful in evaluating sources. TFD (talk) 06:02, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
I have been over that page MEDRS a lot. The problem is the sources move slow and even the current ones seem to be focused on first generation devices. There are sources that talk about the manufacturing resulting in problems, citing first generation devices and thats left to be assumed to cover every generation. Can you please address the first two questions specifically as that may be the answer to the problem? if information on what hardware is tested it might be good. AlbinoFerret 06:14, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, rather than a news service. If the sourcing necessary for such topics as these 'moves slow', then so be it - we don't sacrifice standards just to keep 'up to date' with every development. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:22, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, and I can understand that. But what would be helpful is if you could tell me if information about the hardware used, and cited in the source can be added to the claims in the WP article, and at what point does it become OR if it can, does it stop at the source quoted in WP, or can it go back to the source sited in the source used. AlbinoFerret 06:26, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
An example, A journal article in its methods says that 5 cartomisers were tested, and later makes a claim based on tests of those. The second example, is a review sites an study, in the study the hardware used is mentioned and a conclusion, but the review only repeats the conclusion and gives a citation back to the study. AlbinoFerret 06:32, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
You can only cite a source for what it says directly. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:46, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
So if I understand what your saying, only the first example is usable to say what hardware was used? AlbinoFerret 06:55, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
Yes. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:16, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, sets things strait in my head. AlbinoFerret 09:34, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

New question on the subject

I have been thinking on this a bit, so a new question. If a review makes a statement and gives a refrence to the work cited. Would it be original research to follow that claim by a line that says something like "The Foobar review cited Anyname study that used bla bla hardware" or site the studies topic like air pollution from trucks and then cite the study? AlbinoFerret 18:45, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Suggested addition to WP:CALC

I'd like to propose adding a sentence to WP:CALC, warning about the potential for improper usage when calculating averages. This is an OR problem that arises all over the place, where editors just do the basic arithmetic, but fail to consider the condition of the source data. As an example, I brought up the issue here, where an editor claimed the term average was acceptable for annual mortality numbers, even though the data was highly skewed, the sources were cherry-picked, and most of the deaths counted were not independent events. (A somewhat related matter was discussed some time ago here, but that concerned appropriate usages of median with incomplete data.) Thoughts anyone? jxm (talk) 01:53, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

This question would probably be better at WT:NOR with an explicit proposal of new text. But I don't see it. An average is usually a routine calculation and is meaningful regardless of whether the events are independent or what their distribution is (you mentioned the normal distribution somewhere else; that is not needed). However, that doesn't necessarily mean it is a good idea to write the average in the article if it gives a wrong impression. For example, if 200 people died over a 200 day period, it is correct that on average 1 person died per day. However, if we knew that all 200 people died in a single incident, it would be very bad writing to call that "1 per day" even though it is. I think that example could fall foul of the requirement "meaningful reflection of the sources" at WP:CALC. To take this further, I think you need to propose an explicit wording change to WP:CALC and you should do that at WT:NOR with an explanation. I don't like your chances of finding a change that will get consensus. Zerotalk 11:03, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
@jxm You make a good point that WP:CALC is frequently misinterpreted as justification for original research. This mistake is most often made by editors with a very incomplete understanding of data analysis and statistics. For example, what is the "average" of 2, 2, 2, 5, 989, 991, and 999? Is it 2? 5? Or is it 427? And this assumes that it is appropriate to even combine those numbers in the first place. Converting units and calculating ages are probably less likely to present problems. But "adding numbers" is very vague and is used as a justification for all kinds of original research. I agree that some disambiguation would be good to add to the policy. However, I think it would need to refer to a bit more than just averages. Onefireuser (talk) 15:59, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

My favorite one is that of a Polish cartoonist Zbigniew Lengren: a bio sketch the back cover of one of his books tabulated his stats thusly: "Age: 43, Books: 12, Children: 2, Pets: 1; Total: 58". Jokes aside, I would suggest the phrasing along the words:

"Routine calculation (averages, tallies, etc) is permitted whenever done in a customary way seen in the published sources, when there is a expectation that the input data are systematic and complete within a certain category, and when these calculations are used as an illustration of the conclusions already supported by the sources". -M.Altenmann >t 17:31, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Ah, this is all very helpful. If there are no objections, I'll use the text from Altenmann as the basis for a proposal at WP:NOR. I believe the approach of expanding on what "meaningful reflection of the sources" means is probably the correct hook to use here. I appreciate the suggestions for expanding the guidance beyond just averages, although this does seem to cause a lot of problems. On a side note, independence of events is a requirement in this area; as Zero has correctly illustrated, 200 people dying in a single incident should not be counted as 200 independent events. Also, recognizing some form of appropriate distribution is desirable, in order to avoid the excessive influence of outliers, as the example from Onefireuser indicates. However, I absolutely agree that these sorts of detail are not needed in the NOR guidelines. Thank you all for your feedback. jxm (talk) 23:57, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Calculating averages is OR. The issue isn't the arithmetic, but rather whether a mean value of the displayed data set is a proper presentation in the first place. For incomes, for example, a median is typically preferred. There is also the issue of completeness of the data set. In general statistical analyses ought to come from outside sources. Mangoe (talk) 10:48, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
Anyone can calculate an average, the suggested wording emphasizes doing the customary way published sources systematic etc., it doesn't emphasize that the result must be obvious, correct and meaningful like the policy does. The policy is better off without such an addition because overall it would de-emphasize what is most important and emphasize doing the sort of thing that people do anyway when sticking in statistics without really considering how sensible they are. Note also that the policy says there must be a consensus that the statistics are okay. As usual in Wikipedia this does not mean unanimity but it does mean that a sole editor can't just point to the policy and say their calculation is supported by it against some other editors who dispute that it means anything reasonable. Dmcq (talk) 12:31, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps then we might state that stats should preferably only be incorporated (with consensus of course) when they come from outside reliable sources, as Mangoe suggests. Any thoughts on that? Also @Dmcq, you mention that the policy states there must be a consensus that the statistics are okay. I'm not sure where that is - can you point us to it? Thanx! jxm (talk) 15:29, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
From WP:CALC "Routine calculations do not count as original research, provided there is consensus among editors that the result of the calculation is obvious, correct, and a meaningful reflection of the sources" Dmcq (talk) 17:45, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
The way I have always read WP:CALC it did not apply to statistics (ie calculating probabilities, percentages, averages, etc) but only to simple conversions (ie calculating ages, converting units, etc). Unfortunately, people often do use it as an excuse to calculate statistics (probably because they don't realize that they're calculating statistics). So I agree with you that we may want to explicitly state that WP:CALC does not mean it is okay to produce our own statistics. Perhaps we should add something along the lines of "Statistical calculations, including inferential and descriptive statistics, are not routine calculations and should be referenced to reliable sources. Examples of statistical calculations include standard deviation, mean, percentages, and P-values." --Onefireuser (talk) 17:08, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia policies reflect general best practice and statistics have long been accepted as a routine calculation in some circumstances. They are fairly basic calculations. You are concentrating on the wrong thing when you talk about particular types of calculations and how they are done rather than that they have to be obvious and meaningful in the context. Dmcq (talk) 17:45, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
I don't accept them as routine. The question is not whether the arithmetic is easy, but whether it is appropriate. Statistical presentations are notoriously fraught with distortions and misrepresentations, which is why we have How to Lie with Statistics on the shelf. Mangoe (talk) 21:36, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

RfC United States same-sex marriage map

I opened up an RfC for the U.S. same-sex marriage map due to the complicated situation of Kansas. There are Original Research concerns. RfC: How should we color Kansas? Prcc27 (talk) 08:40, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Maps of ISIL

A number of maps appear in Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and in related articles which purport to describe areas under ISIL control. These maps include File:Territorial control of the ISIS.svg, File:Syria_and_Iraq_2014-onward_War_map.png and derivatives thereof. These maps constitute original research. All the maps I have seen published by reliable sources (including those cited by the authors of the maps in question) show ISIL control as consisting of the towns they control and the roads connecting them, but the maps in question also added the vast uninhabited lands between these roads. As far as I can tell, the authors' reasoning is that since ISIL controls the roads surrounding these uninhabited areas, no other force can access them so they should be considered ISIL-controlled territory. Regardless of the validity of their logic whatever it be, the fact remains that no other reliable source, particularly not the sources they cite, describe ISIL-controlled territory in that manner, therefore these maps are original research. My attempts to raise this issue in the relevant discussion pages have been largely ignored. Is there a way to mark an image with an "Original Research" warning template, so that at least the reader will be aware that the territory depicted in the maps is not based on reliable sources? Note that these maps reside in Commons.--158.222.143.13 (talk) 02:05, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

You're quite right. Those maps are clearly original research/unverifiable and do not reflect the sources. Would it be possible to fix the maps so they reflect the sources? --Onefireuser (talk) 20:08, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
Your first image file says it is taken from a BBC map. If so then there is no reason not to include it, but we should state the source of the map in its description, for example. "area controlled by ISIS, according to BBC." TFD (talk) 05:03, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
That map it says it is taken from can be found here. This BBC map shows a dramatically different area of control than the map we've created for Wikipedia. --Onefireuser (talk) 16:52, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
I raised the problem on the talk page quite a while ago but got nowhere. The article map didn't match the BBC map then, and in any case that map is dated July 25th, so 4 months old. Dougweller (talk) 19:16, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
The questions isn't so straightforward for maps. If they illustrate the text and don't try to say more then they can come under WP:OI. Of course we shouldn't use something that is a lot different from a reliable source! Dmcq (talk) 20:45, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

This was not brought to the ISIL talk page or any related page. Onefireuser there are tons of RS maps out there showing the empty desert under ISIL control. explained at the Atlantic and in the extensive (now archived) discussions on the talk pages. Your deletion of the control map from the ISIL article based on a little obscure discussion and zero RS here is not in good faith. Any attempts by the IP to raise the issue were likely ignore because few editor agree with the IP. The map is derived from the detailed control maps for Iraq and Syria where each edit is carefully sourced. Legacypac (talk) 21:33, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

@Legacypac, I am sorry that you feel that these changes were not made in good faith. If I made a mistake in removing the maps, I hope someone will correct it. From the comments that Legacypac posted on the Talk page of the ISIL page defending the maps on November 16, it certainly sounded like these maps were OR. Ditto for the discussion on the Talk page for the maps themselves. The source that is cited for the map is the BBC map, which looks very different. If there are RSes out there that resemble the Wikipedia map, it should be easy enough to add them as sources and reinstate the map. If not, doesn't it seem that this is OR or at least WP:UNDUE given the the Atlantic article Legacypac referenced? --Onefireuser (talk) 22:11, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
The maps have been restored. Attempts should be made to make sure they are properly sourced and not OR. --Onefireuser (talk) 22:21, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
There is an argument that can be made either way around the coloring of uninhabited areas. But the map, AFAICT, takes it's data from reported control of villages and towns (this map Module:Iraqi insurgency detailed map). That to my mind makes it no different to someone taking a nature article on the distribution of musk oxen and doing a map for that. If that's OR, then we have to delete a whole swathe of maps from nature articles because most of them do not reproduce maps which exist elsewhere. Akerbeltz (talk) 23:07, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

We have to remember that, regardless of the implications or our personal viewpoints, Western news outlets aren't going to give ISIS credit for an inch of territory unless control can be verified. Since nobody lives in the desert, there aren't going to be any verifications. The best way to address this impartially is to say, if a person committed a criminal act in a given area, under whose jurisdiction would they be judged? An encompassed desert would put the handful of bedouin inhabitants under the control of surrounding jurisdiction. To be judged, they would likely go into a city or town, just as a person living in a rural area in the US or Europe probably would.

Also, ISIS might not have a standing army in the middle of the desert, but the same could be said about the SAA or Iraqi army. Just because they don't have active units patrolling the area does not mean they don't control it. Under the same logic, we would have to draw a map of the US with mountainous regions and northern Alaska shaded a different color, since technically there are not any active military or police forces controlling them. The lands are effectively controlled by the surrounding power, and we should not be afraid to reflect this on situation maps.

For a shaded map that denotes areas controlled by all sides, we can't just cede default control to the side that we favor because they previously controlled the land or for conformity to partial presuppositions that can be upheld by claiming "where's your source?" when we all know that there are no sources because there are no inhabitants. We can't just submit to copying news businesses that merely repeat information handed to them by 'reputable' sources, which to them means Western governments, which are biased sources in this conflict. Simply regurgitating information from accidentally partial secondary sources would make Wikipedia a tertiary source, and depreciate the value of the entire website.74.141.34.80 (talk) 16:59, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Now that is what Wikipedia means by original research. If the maps say something of any note not in the text they need to have reliable sources. They don't need people here arguing with the reliable sources and talking about western bias or whatever. If there are reliable sources that disagree with each other then you can start on that. Dmcq (talk) 17:15, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

I am the editor who placed this notice and I want to point out that before I did so I started discussions on both Talk:Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant and File_talk:Territorial_control_of_the_ISIS.svg, so don't say "[t]his was not brought to the ISIL talk page or any related page". In both discussions I got one or two replies and my further inquiries were ignored, so I wanted to know how to mark the map in question as OR, which is why I placed this notice here. Now, the Atlantic article does not provide actual information about ISIS-controlled territory, it only makes an argument about the depiction of said territory. It doesn't even claim that ISIS actually controls the uninhabited areas. If ISIS were a sovereign state then you could speak of its sovereign territory, but it is not, so you can speak of its claimed territory and you can speak of the territory it actually controls. We have reliable sources about both, so why not depict them as they are? Why instead create a map that reflects what certain editors (plus, supposedly, an Atlantic article) consider "control"? How is this not OR?--158.222.143.13 (talk) 03:43, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I just punched "Mali rebels maps" into Google [2] and it seems to be common practice to shade uninhabited areas 'held' be rebels. Out of the first 21 maps, only 2 make a distinction between 'rebel held' and 'rebel claimed'. The rest (including The Guardian and OCHA (=UN)) just mark the whole area as rebel controlled. The same is also true if you replace Mali in the search string with Ukraine, Sudan etc. As best as I can tell the distinguishing factor seems to be the ability of a rebel movement to set up some form of parallel government. If there is no parallel government, map depictions seem to restrict themselves to marking individual rebel attacks, cf Thailand.
Turning out attention to Iraq [3], the patterns seems to be a bit patchier. Vox, The Mirror, ABC and the Daily Mail (out of the top results for the same search) just color in the whole area same as the map on Wikipedia in question. The BBC, Telegraph and the Washington Post (yes, I'm ignoring blogs) prefer to colour in just inhabited areas of control. Seems to me that in the case of Iraq, some are actually trying to downplay (at least on maps) the impact of ISIS but by no means all.
So I cannot see how this practice constitutes OR or is indeed not acceptable philosophically given how prevalent it is out there. Akerbeltz (talk)

Editors seem to be a building a good case here that there is no single, clear way to depict the maps and that this is documented in the primary sources and discussed directly by the Atlantic article. Is there a problem with simply showing both types of maps and devoting a a few lines of the article to discussing the problems with mapping ISIL territory? Onefireuser (talk) 14:41, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I would be ok with that approach, certainly. Akerbeltz (talk) 17:54, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I think you should check what these maps actually depict before presenting them as evidence. Of the maps from Vox.com (is this a reliable source?), the first is a 2006 map produced by ISIS as a strategic plan (see [4]), the second originates from an anonymous post on a website called Energy Policy Information Center (see [5]), the third describes the shaded area as "presence", not "control", and the forth originates from a tweet by a think tank called Securing America's Future Energy, and the legend in that map doesn't even say what the shaded area means (see [6]). Vox.com also has a bunch of maps that show only the main roads as ISIL control, so I think it is safe to say that Vox.com has an eclectic set of maps that does not present a coherent viewpoint and is not a reliable source. The Mirror map also speaks of "presence". The map by ABC Australia describes "areas where ISIS has some control". The Daily Mail map describes "territory influenced or controlled by ISIS". To summarize what reliable information we actually have: we know which parts of Iraq and Syria ISIL controls, we know which parts ISIL claims, and then there's a third category that does not have a consistent definition. I think this third category is redundant, but if you insist on including it in the map, it should be clear what it denotes. At any rate, the present map is unacceptable.--158.222.143.13 (talk) 02:25, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

One solution is to provide multiple maps (with attribution), side by side... Doing this presents the reader with the different ways of looking at the question of "territory", without saying which is "correct". Blueboar (talk) 16:29, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
That works for me too. 158.222.143.13, how about you draft a map showing the 'corridor' view and then we can figure how best to display them side by side? Akerbeltz (talk) 18:01, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
I would love to do that, not sure when that is going to happen though... I really don't want to get into an upload war or revert war with the proponents of the maximalist view of ISIL-controlled area.--158.222.143.13 (talk) 20:25, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Arlene Francis

peter gabel-who is arlene francis son told me his mother died of complications pf alzheimers disease and sepsis,she never had cancer-source peter gabelge neededge needed. change needs to be made to arlene francis article71.186.150.94 (talk) 09:35, 27 November 2014 (UTC)vincent callea-source peter gabel

Unfortunately, we can not implement the change you desire... Wikipedia requires that information be verifiable, and there is no way for the reader to verify an oral communication between Mr. Gabel and yourself. We need a reliably published source (a source that is accessible to the public). Blueboar (talk) 12:30, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
The statement in the article is currently wholly unsourced, so there is no bar to removing the reference of cancer. Paul B (talk) 13:10, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
Good point... when she died, and where she is buried is easily verifiable (and probably does not need to be sourced) ... but the cause of death is not, so it is best to simply omit that info. It can always be added back if a source can be found. Blueboar (talk) 14:26, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

The Exodus

An IP has changed the meaning of two reliable sources from The Exodus. One source is quite clear that most archaeologists have abandoned the archaeological research of the Exdous as a fruitless pursuit, read it for yourself here: [7]. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:07, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Pages 98 and 99. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:09, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

I tried to reason with the IP at User talk:173.238.79.44, but he/she is unwilling to abide by our rules. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:18, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, read the source yourself. It does not say anywhere that "no evidence exists" for the events described in Exodus. It does mention that the Biblical account may have been based on actual events, and put into a spiritual context. In any case, this is only according to this source. In any case, it is a false claim. It is widely accepted that some evidence exists to place the conditions for elements of the Exodus to have occurred, and that the Canaanites in Egypt during and after the Hyksos period are likely to have been related to the Canaanite Israelites in Exodus, just as the Canaanites in Genesis. Josephus asserted this as early as Roman times. The Hebrew language is classified as a Canaanite language, and is known to be closely related to other (extinct) Semitic languages of that region, like Phoenician. The Israelites were originally a tribe of Canaanites. The Merneptah Stele is another piece of evidence (an Egyptian stele) for the nation of Israel existing as early as 1200 BC. These are all pieces of limited evidence for the existence of Canaanites, including the proto-Israelites mentioned in the Book of Exodus, being in Egypt at that time. Interest in this area among archaeologists and historians has increased rapidly since the release of The Exodus Decoded a few years ago. 173.238.79.44 (talk) 18:24, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
I meant the Dever source, why change what Dever makes it very clear and still attribute it to Dever? As explained at your talk page, "Canaanites in Egypt" is a red herring. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:27, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
"The made-for-TV documentary, The Exodus Decoded, begins with some excellent special effects and a short excerpt from the Steven Spielberg-George Lucas thriller, Raiders of the Lost Ark. This introduction sets the stage for a fast-paced show with high production values and dramatic footage. Unfortunately, unlike the Indiana Jones movie, this film presents itself as non-fiction. Watching it is reminiscent of an expensive infomercial, in which the actor-salesman makes increasingly exaggerated claims for his product—it makes you lose weight, adds muscle, and makes you rich to boot. In this case, the actor-director is selling a highly dubious bundle of theories about the historical and scientific veracity of the Biblical Exodus." Quoted from [8]. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:30, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
That was the opinion of one reviewer. Many ideas and evidence used in the documentary, however, are widely recognized and accepted, and are evidence for a context for the Exodus narrative to have occurred. This does not mean that all of the Exodus is supported by this evidence, merely a few parts of it could be supported by it - namely that the Biblical narrative could be based upon the existence of a Canaanite population in Egypt at that time, which was then expelled or fled. Since the release of that documentary, interest in the area has increased rapidly and theories have been changed somewhat. Most scholars now admit that there may be a link between the Canaanites in Egypt at the time of the Exodus and the Canaanite Israelites. Josephus associated the Israelites with the Hyksos period as early as Roman times. The Merneptah Stele is evidence for the existence of Israel as early as 1200 BC, which is later than the Hyksos period. It is accepted that the Israelites were a Semitic Canaanite people, and originated from Canaan. Anyone who thinks logically in any way admits, based on such evidence, the possible linkage between the Canaanite Israelites in Egypt mentioned in Exodus and the Canaanites in Egypt during and after the Hyksos period. [9] 173.238.79.44 (talk) 18:43, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
Dever said "archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus has similarly been discarded as a fruitless pursuit. Indeed, the overwhelming archaeological evidence today of largely indigenous origins for early Israel leaves no room for an exodus from Egypt or a 40-year pilgrimage through the Sinai wilderness." I'm pretty sure Exodus doesn't mention Canaanite Israelites or proto-Israelites. Dougweller (talk) 19:37, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
If you actually read the review you have just dismissed as one person's opinion, you will see it says very clearly that memories of the expulsions and enslavements folowing the Hyksos period may well lie behind the Exodus story. This is not really in dispute. Your claim that views have changed "since the release of the documentary" is utterly unsupported. Paul B (talk) 15:37, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
The IP's sources all amount to "no evidence exists", just speculation. Josephus' writing is hardly a good source. How we he know what happened more than a thousand years before he was born? TFD (talk) 22:34, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

The caption of the image

Please take a look at this section. The caption of the 4th image seems to be OR or personal opinion to me. Is it acceptable? The image and the same caption is also used in Mongoloid. Oda Mari (talk) 08:58, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Yeah... there are issues with all of the captions in that article, but especially the one you highlight. Without a citation, we can not verify that the women depicted in the picture actually are Japanese... for all we know, they could be Koreans, or of some other oriental heritage (heck, they could even be Americans of oriental descent). Blueboar (talk) 14:23, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Umbrella Movement

This article is recently created to separate from "2014 Hong Kong protests" article. I am not sure why it is tagged as original research. --George Ho (talk) 05:48, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Who Stole Feminism?

User:DHeyward added this sentence to the Who Stole Feminism? page. I think that the sentence is original research because

  • the source added by DHeyward does not mention the book Who Stole Feminism? or its author Christina Hoff Sommers. The source is completely unrelated to the topic of the article whereas the other references in the reception section explicitly discuss Sommers' book and her use of the Blackstone quote;
  • DHeyward's source doesn't support his statement "Blackstone has said the law prohibited physical violence against his wife". The source says the exact opposite in the square brackets "other than as lawfully and reasonably pertains to the husband for the rule and correction of his wife";
  • the sentence was written and placed in a way as to serve as a rebuttal to Flanders and Hirshman although DHeyward's source never mentions Sommers, her book, Flanders, Hirshman, or anything related to the article topic.

I tried to discuss the addition on the article talk page but DHeyward insists that the addition isn't OR because the source mentions Blackstone (who isn't the topic of the article) and that the source supports his claim (which it doesn't imho). I appreciate input from uninvolved editors. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 22:45, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

This editor appear to be wikihounding me (check his history). No, it's not original research to find a secondary source that is neutral about a disputed topic. Sonicyouth86 partially quotes my edit, which is ironic given that's the original critics complaint about Sommers. I added " Blackstone has said the law prohibited physical violence against his wife though courts did not always follow the law." That is an accurate summary of the secondary source interpretation of the quote and lends credence and context to both Sommers and her critic's points of contention which was: whether it was legal for men to use violence against their wives in the 1700's. The secondary source explains that the letter and practice of the law were not the same especially for poorer women that were not familiar with the law. --DHeyward (talk) 23:10, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Yes, the "original critics" complain about Sommers' use of the legal text by Blackstone. The source that you added does not say anything about Sommers or her "original critics". Do you understand now why it's inappropriate to use it in the Sommers article as a reponse to her "original critics"? And no, it's not a accurate summary of the source. Btw, you followed me to the page to revert my edit, not the other way around. Get your facts straight. My encounters with you have so far been restricted to two mainspace pages (all CHS stuff), your user talk page, the GamerGate enforcement page, and this discussion. Your accusation of wikihounding is ridiculous and dishonest and I suggest that you stop now. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 23:23, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
The topic in the article is a quote by Blackstone. The published source is directly related to Blackstone, and directly supports the statement being presented in the article. It does not rebut or refute any arguments made by Sommers or her critics. It is reliably sourced information about the topic. --DHeyward (talk) 23:58, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
I added another source. [10]. Same result. --DHeyward (talk) 03:41, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

It's out of order for DHeyward to accuse Sonicyouth86 of hounding, as it was Sonicyouth86 who was first involved at the article and its talk page. It's clear that DHeyward followed Sonicyouth86 in this case. So the accusation is shown to be false, and DHeyward shown to be flinging mud.
Regarding the NOR violation, all of the citations used at the article should ideally discuss the topic, which is Sommers' book. If the citation doesn't mention Sommers or the book, it will have great limitations in usefulness. The only time I think it is appropriate to bring a reference which doesn't mention the topic is in a section about background, setting up the topic, telling the reader what has gone before. In the case of this addition by DHeyward, the paragraph is instead near the end of the article, describing the book's reception. All of the references here should specifically discuss the book. The paragraph is about how Hirshman and Flanders have rebutted ideas presented in the book. But then DHeyward adds an additional argument made only by DHeyward, to rebut Hirshman and Flanders and support the book. And I have to agree with Sonicyouth86 that DHeyward gets it wrong, since Blackstone allows moderate corporal punishment given by a man to his wife, children or apprentices, in a widely followed de facto practice that had the power of law despite having no written legislation. This is a clear case of original research, and DHeyward's addition should be removed. Binksternet (talk) 04:31, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

You missed this.[11]. Try again. The wiki-hounding is two different noticeboards within hours. --DHeyward (talk) 04:36, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
That letter is unpublished, therefore unusable.
The hounding is not relevant to this NORN case, in fact it shows that whatever hounding has been taking place is not unidirectional, since you followed Sonicyouth86. Binksternet (talk) 04:54, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
Sommers herself had a letter of rebuttal to Hirshman published in LA Times shortly after Hirshman. It will say the same thing. I have the cite index but not the exact text so I will wait. Sommers rebuttal will not be as neutral as the simple interpretations of Blackstone but it conforms. --DHeyward (talk) 05:54, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Can you cite your own (published) work?

I have a general question about applying WP:OR. In particular, I wonder whether it's acceptable practice to cite self-created sources, when that source is independent of the subject. For example, if I do historical research on a property on the National Register of Historic Places (for which many articles are stubs) and then have a paper published under the auspices of the local historical society, can I then expand the article on that property with information drawn from and attributed to my paper? Knight of Truth (talk) 06:12, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I imagine that some people would see some sort of WP:COI issue with this (though that would be a dubious claim), but I see no OR issue with it. In my mind, the reason for the original research policy is that we're outsourcing a portion of the quality control and fact-checking procedure to people with a reputational interest in getting it right, so anything that goes through a process like that (peer review, publication) by a reliable source with "skin in the game" is not a problem, from an OR perspective. So if you manage to get someone with a reputation for reliability and veracity to maintain to effectively "co-sign" or otherwise endorse your research by publishing it themselves, then it doesn't matter if you're the one adding it to Wikipedia or not. 0x0077BE (talk · contrib) 14:16, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
Does this answer your question? --Onefireuser (talk) 19:56, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
I have been wondering this too, since others have cited published work of mine. (Reference #40 in this article is one example. Other articles of mine in the same journalistic publication would be equally valid. Of course, I would refrain from using information in my notes that did not make it into the article.    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 03:28, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
Seems fine to me. TFD (talk) 04:45, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
I have reservations. Generally, WP welcomes experts to contribute to articles in their area. Any such contribution should be circumspect because there is a COI and a chance that the reference is made for the wrong reasons. I've reverted many contributions by primary authors of papers in peer reviewed journals. There can be many reasons: the addition may be too technical or narrow; sometimes it's plain advertising -- the editor is inserting his refs in every possible article. The simple approach for an expert is to add to an article but use independent sources. That's not a requirement, and many articles have good contributions from editors citing their own work. There are journals that will publish almost anything; that's a reason to cast a critical eye on any primary source; that's why reliable secondary sources are preferred to primary sources. Look at WP:UNDUE. I'd be nervous about material published by a "local historical society"; there may be little editorial review; it would be a single source; it may amount to a self-published work. WP is leery of selfpubs, but if the selfpub has references to the same level that WP wants, then I would not object to it. (The selfpub's refs could be used directly in the WP article.) I'm leery of any primary source that offers an opinion about something; if the opinion is not compelling, then there should be a secondary review. It's probably OK to use the local historical society paper to say George Washington slept there in 1779, but it would not be OK to have some opinion about Washington's approach to the war, put that opinion in the LHS paper, and then stick that opinion in a WP article with the LHS as a source. Glrx (talk) 06:06, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

A question on OR

There is a discussion on the Electronic cigarette talk page. If my understanding is correct it is OR by synthesis to gather information from different sections of a journal article to come to a conclusion the author never wrote in the article. Context may be ok, but it would have to be in the same section, preferably in the same paragraph. Is this correct? AlbinoFerret 22:22, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Its unlikely for the other editor to post here, they have said they are done discussing this. They were informed on my coming here on the 5th diff. I would like the information if nothing else to confirm my understanding of OR by synthesis. AlbinoFerret 11:46, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Autobiographical sources in fiction

Novelists frequently include incidents or people based on real life. How far can we go in spelling out similarities? Obviously, with an RS saying X is based on Y, it's easy and I wouldn't be asking here. Let me give two examples.

  1. In Chaim Grade The Agunah, there is living in Vilna a Rabbi Levi Hurvitz who lives in Shlomo Kissen's courtyard, both his wife and daughter are insane and have been committed. A divisive issue comes up (the plot of the novel) which leads to the rabbi in the end resigning and leaving. In his post-Holocaust memoir The Seven Little Lanes, Grade tells how he asked a Vilna survivor if he remembers a Rabbi Levi Hurvitz who lived in Shlomo Kissen's courtyard, and whose wife and daughter were insane and both committed and who quit Vilna over some issue or other. (As a completely irrelevant detail, the spellings of the names of R. Hurvitz and Kissen are different in the existing English translations (by different translators), but they are spelled identically in the original Yiddish. I would want to mention the similarity even if the names had been completely different.)
  2. In Helen Hooven Santmyer "...And Ladies of the Club", set in a fictionalized Xenia (lots of RS for that point) there is a prominent theological professor, his brilliant daughter given to religious fanaticism, and her two children, a boy and a girl, who are raised deliberately with almost no childhood friends, including exclusive homeschooled education, and the boy is seriously maladjusted socially, given to hitting other children with heavy objects. In her memoir Ohio Town about the real-world Xenia (lots of RS for that point), Santmyer mentions a prominent theological professor, his brilliant daughter given to religious fanaticism, and her two children, a boy and a girl, who are raised deliberately with almost no childhood friends, including exclusive homeschooled education, and the boy is seriously maladjusted socially, given to hitting other children with heavy objects. In the novel these four people have names, and the boy is older than the girl. In the memoir they are all unnamed, and the boy is younger than the girl.

I am aware that there are bad biographies out there, where the biographer extrapolated from the fiction and cluelessly got things wrong, but that's an entirely unrelated issue. I'm also aware that there is a slippery slope with various other WP-issues. Meanwhile, I would like to point out similarities like 1 and 2 above, but avoid any OR, in particular, no stating in the voice of WP that certain passages were actually based on anything. Choor monster (talk) 16:32, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Fictional flags RFC

This RFC may of interest of regular editors at this noticeboard. (Please add any comments at the RFC and not duplicate the discussion here.) Abecedare (talk) 23:24, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Honorary Aryan

A new editor, Timothycrice (talk · contribs), has been adding material (using his account but also apparently editing logged out) to Honorary Aryan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) that doesn't discuss the subject of the article. He's now mentioned the subject with this edit, which says:

"First, let us be clear that the term "honorary Aryan" (German: Ehrenarier) itself is not found anywhere in Mein Kampf. Did Hitler change his views after he wrote Mein Kampf? This is an important question, since one can see how contemptuous he was of both the Japanese, as well as anyone who was different from him, at the time he was writing Chapter XI of Mein Kampf, " and then carries on to quote Hitler, although the quotes to not show him using the term 'Aryan' to refer to the Japanese, but to Aryan influence on the Japanese. I've reverted him twice and posted to his talk page with no response. Dougweller (talk) 09:22, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I've tagged his user page and the associated ISPs with 3RR warning. - Location (talk) 00:09, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

D'Assas Heureaux

In related articles about former presidents of the Dominican Republic, Ulises Heureaux and Joaquín Balaguer, there is an argument about Assad Heureaux origin (ancestor). Users Virgrod and Savvyjack2 have been reverting each others and/or adding unreferenced text. Most recently user Virgrod explains thats his argument is under discussion as not a Synth. I have joined this discussion as a member of WP:DOMREP, checking important articles salted with sensitive information. This Noticeboard should help settle the discussion of inclussion of WP:OR in those articles. Thanks, Osplace 13:44, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I suggest that this and this edits about the person being a Haitian constitute original research.
I also fail to understand why fine details of the ancestry of Ulises Heureaux are also nearly verbatim repeated in the bio of Joaquín Balaguer. IMO one place is enough. -M.Altenmann >t 03:33, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
We still need this discussion to be over, both users are still figthing. The only question unsolved is alleged to be WP:OR. Osplace 01:52, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

324th Division (Vietnam)

The article states that the letter "B" in the designation of the division implies "Bắc", which means "North Vietnam". I can't find any source that support this claim, while the user who writes it on the page refuse to give any source. I think this clearly constitutes an OR. Moreover, such information is soundly illogical, as the method of inference fails to explain other similar cases in the VPA, which the designation of a unit contained a letter after a number, i.e. 320A Division (which existed contemporarily with a sister division designated as 320B Division, see Chiến dịch Hồ Chí Minh: Trang sử vàng qua các trận đánh, People's Army Press, 2005, p. 762) or 325C Division.Dino nam (talk) 18:55, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

For background to this complaint please see my earlier complaint on the Admin noticeboard on 10 December [12] regarding User:Dino nam's disruptive, non-RS editing and generally argumentative style on Battle of Cửa Việt and Battle of Thường Ðức and his 3R on 324th Division (Vietnam). This is just a tit-for-tat response from User:Dino nam. It is not my original research, the words that User:Dino nam wishes to delete have been on the page since 2011 and while a CN tag is appropriate deletion at this point isn't. User:Dino nam often relies on non RS such as Nhan Dan (the Vietnamese Army newspaper) and as here something from the People's Army Press, which it has already been established are non RS. I am trying to locate an explanation as to why the Division was called 324B and what the B actually means, without success so far. An Osprey book suggests that the North Vietnamese cloned various Divisions which does accord with User:Dino nam's source above, but there is no evidence that there was a 320A Division alongside the 320B Division or a 324A Division alongside a 324B Division, rather it seems that this was just done to confuse U.S. order of battle analysts, but that, at present is OR Mztourist (talk) 03:36, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
I just went to take a look at the offending page, and it looks like the phrase has already been removed. Why do you feel that just a tag is sufficient at this point? If there is no evidence that something can be reliably sourced, why should it remain on Wikipedia? --Onefireuser (talk) 15:27, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Vani Hari

Resolved
 – OR removed, correct source supplied MLPainless (talk) 00:23, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Editor Kingofaces43 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has reversed (2x) my removal of SYN and OR here. The OR is blatant:

"This person says X is bad. But another source (that does not mention this person) says X is good." The implied conclusion is that the person is wrong.

Just blatant SYN. MLPainless (talk) 05:58, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm heading out for the night, but I'd encourage folks to read the talk page conversation[13], edit history, etc. There are other issues going on here, but in terms of original research it's pretty cut and dry under WP:PSCI and WP:FRINGE that this is assigning due weight to the view expressed by the subject. That is not considered original research as we're weighing what the appropriate sources are saying about the specific claims and not the person making them. In this case, a specific response is not needed from a medical organization for each person who makes a claim that runs against the scientific consensus. The claims themselves are addressed instead when dealing with scientific/medical content. Kingofaces43 (talk) 06:36, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
You're "weighing what the appropriate sources are saying"? That is the very definition of OR. MLPainless (talk) 06:48, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
Probably best to let other folks respond as this point as the purpose of this board is to get input from other folks. I already mentioned on your talk page how NPOV meshes into OR, so I'd let other folks have a crack at it. Kingofaces43 (talk) 07:06, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
That content was not created by Kingofaces; it has been there content about this, and stating the scientific consensus on flu shots, since about July. IT has been reviewed by many others including admins, and is fine per WP:PSCI, WP:FRINGE and especially WP:BLPFRINGE. Jytdog (talk) 12:03, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

What is happening to WP? This is a clear example of OR/SYN, and yet even when it's posted to the OR noticeboard there is no action. Is the project losing its integrity? I'm a little shocked. Can an experienced admin comment here please? MLPainless (talk) 18:57, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

WP:PSCI has been policy for a long, long time. and by the way it is my understanding that this board and others are places to get wider discussion from the community; they are not for admin action. Content disputes get worked out in the community via the methods described in WP:DR (which include the use of boards like this one). Behavior issues are addressed at ANI and other admin board like AIV, AN etc and when they get very bad, Arbcom. This is a content dispute, as far as I can see - a dispute about how policy applies to some content. Jytdog (talk) 19:03, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
Yes, this looks like synthesis, but given that we can cite a source (entirely appropriate per WP:FRINGE) which gives the response of mainstream science to her claims regarding flu vaccination, such synthesis is unnecessary. [14] AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:15, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
Additionally it has only been half a day since you posted here, and there has been more talk in the appropriate place, the talk page of the article. Beach drifter (talk) 19:30, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Beach Drifter provided as source that allows the material to be added without OR. I've made the change. MLPainless (talk) 00:23, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Chronicles of Eri multiple issues

An editor has added what appears to be in part an essay to this article about a literary hoax, attempting to show that it is not. It's one of those situations where a new editor doesn't understand our policies and adds OR written in an NPOV fashion, with what sources there are, eg a forum, failing our criteria for sources. I am rarely sure where to bring such problems. This article has several statements in it about Wikipedia itself, eg "Although this may appear persuasive evidence that in usual circumstances might elicit some to reconsider the chronicle, both it and its author had been so roundly calumniated (on spurious grounds) that there is no evidence of any public notice of this or any other point of hard evidence until this introduction here on wiki in midsummer 2014, (and earlier that year in a little visited related website)." "A factor in the general resistance to consider evidence with respect to the chronicle was the reports formally here on wiki and elsewhere claiming it to have been disproven. Wiki claims to follow the Darwinian principle of evolution, allowing all equal access to edit content with a view to enable an erosion of inaccuracies out of its pages. Skeptics of the chronicle are invited to add considered content to the section that follows." "The question of the chronicle’s placement here on wiki as a literary hoax is of some significance as the chronicle claims to double the course of Gaelic history." It also states "A claim is currently made in the academic press that the chronicle has been disproven,[10] however an email request for further detail has proved unsuccessful,". I've reverted once and the author asked for protection of the page at the Teahouse. Dougweller, 15:54, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I am getting a little confused and frustrated at this sudden outburst of indignation from those who claim to represent wiki. I revived a demand earlier today suggesting I update citations, remove personal points of view, improve links and so on. OK- but that takes time.
Now I am receiving further demands having suffered an outrageous attack on the free flow of information that my page seeks to transmit, simply deleted and replaced by the nonsense my page was written to defend against.- I am not sure, but have some reasons to suspect that these problems are flowing from some of those in wiki who are determined to perpetuate their allegation that the chronicle is a hoax as classed by wiki. A great example of what they describe as neutral point of view [NPOV}. Your evidence please? Throw what they may at my evidence- all I can promise is a record will be kept- the future can judge, and the past cannot be changed- good luck, I think you could be helping without intending to! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk • contribs) 23:13, 22 December 2014‎
You appear to misunderstand the purpose of Wikipedia articles - they are not forums for "the free flow of information", they are encyclopaedic content, to be based on published reliable sources. If you wish to allege that there is some sort of conspiracy on Wikipedia to misrepresent the Chronicles, at least have the decency to do so on the article talk page - though frankly I doubt that you will get very far, given that irrefutable evidence demonstrates that Wikipedia contributors couldn't conspire to make a cup of tea without splitting into at least three warring factions... AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:25, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
I have tried to explain to the user on Dougweller's page about Wikipedia's principle of WP:NOR, but it doesn't seem to take. Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age, you seem to be a better writer than reader. Please try to internalize our explanations of why Wikipedia isn't fit for your purpose. Bishonen | talk 01:09, 23 December 2014 (UTC).

Hi as I said I will go back to the page with revisions reflecting your NOR NOP and other general points raised. My concern is that the page my one was replaced with recently takes those problems to unprecedented levels. For example my page illustrated the source scrolls, their location and pedigree which are there for anyone to check and it was replaced by a page claiming there were no source scrolls. This project is of some weight as it alone potentially represents around half the history of the people of the British Isles. Should those intent on censoring public access to the facts surrounding it be allowed to knowingly mislead people on key questions such as this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk • contribs) 06:49, 23 December 2014‎

The version of the page most recently by you was edited because it violated Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia articles are based on published reliable sources, and not on the original research of contributors. And cut out the crap about 'censorship' - this is a private website, and we are under no obligation whatsoever to provide a platform for your personal opinions. If you wish to contribute to Wikipedia, you will be obliged to do so in a way that complies with policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:14, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

It's a literary fraud, especially the title page, however Conner might have incorporated some Irish oral traditions into his work. So the whole thing might not be fiction.

"In 1822 O'Connor published ‘The Chronicles of Eri, being the History of the Gael, Sciot Iber, or Irish People: translated from the Original Manuscripts in the Phœnician dialect of the Scythian Language.’ The book is mainly, if not entirely, the fruit of O'Connor's imagination."

Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 41. O'Connor, Roger

"All we have then is O' Connor's translation into English of whatever material he had. It is possible he took down oral tradition."

"The question remains, however where did O' Conner get his material. Allowing for his pretentiousness, his foolish exaggerations, he could hardly have imagined the entire book. If one compares the silly claims of his Preface with the sober recital of the text, one finds it hard to believe that both came from the same author."

"Before closing, however, notice must be taken of Roger O' Conner's (Cier-Rige) book, Chronicles of Eri, published in 1822. The text was re-issued in 1936 by L. Albert, editor, under the title Six Thousand Years of Celtic Grandeur Unearthed. Albert was disappointed with the reception given the book and in 1938 issued extracts relating to the Milesian Invasion (The Buried Alive Chronicles of Ireland). He also included a Roll of the Kings, a Commentary, and as an Appendix, certain 'Jewels of Ancient Wisdom' selected from the Chronicles of Eri.

Neary. M. (1973). "The True Origin of the Sons of Mil". Journal of the County Louth Archaeological and Historical Society. 18(1): 69-83. IrishBookofInvasons (talk) 15:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Bizarrely "irish chief" seems to think he/she created the chronicles of eri page. No. It was added long before they arrived. They then removed the Macalister quote and uploaded their own personal essay from their website. So they were the actual vandal. They're now though calling the poster(s) who removed their essay the vandal. IrishBookofInvasons (talk) 16:22, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
"For example my page illustrated the source scrolls, their location and pedigree which are there for anyone to check and it was replaced by a page claiming there were no source scrolls." there are no source scrolls. O'Connor never showed them. So are you saying you are his relative or something and have come into possession of them? Obviously not. So your essay doesn't count as any evidence. IrishBookofInvasons (talk) 16:25, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

The page 'chronicles of eri' has again been replaced by falsehoods regarding source scrolls for the second time in 24 hours. The former page illustrated the source scrolls, gave a full provenance of their location, condition and so on and yet their existence is still called into question here and again displaced by disinformation on them on the page 'chronicles of eri'.

The last contributor writes in bold O'Connor never showed them, yet this is easily shown in error -those interested can check out the page Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ireland#Chronicles_of_Eri where this ridiculous argument is pursued with the person responsible for displacing the page containing evidence of them with a claim they do not exist. Visitors will be able to see here how very simple points of provenance in the former page 'chronicles of eri' [linked by an earlier contributor] are treated.

In view of the evident determination of so many to deny such obvious and unequivocal evidence, there would seem little point in pursuing any more contentious points on the 'chronicles of eri'. Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 21:02, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

There is no point whatsoever in you pursuing anything that does not involve compliance with the Wikipedia policy that requires content to be verifiable according to published reliable sources. We aren't interested in your 'evidence', and won't be unless and until it receives recognition amongst qualified historians. This isn't open to negotiation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:16, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
You don't provide evidence or link to the scrolls/manuscripts. The preface or title page of the Chronicles of Eri states:

"CHRONICLES OF ERI;

BEING THE

HISTORY OF THE GAAL SCIOT IBER:

OR,

THE IRISH PEOPLE;

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS IN THE PHOENICIAN DIALECT OF THE SCYTHIAN LANGUAGE."

These "original manuscripts" were never produced by O'Connor. IrishBookofInvasons (talk) 00:31, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
You're not getting it. It does not matter how much evidence you can present for your ideas. It does not even matter if your ideas are right. All that matters is whether they have been vetted by the scholarly community. That's what WP:NOR means, and it's a fundamental Wikipedia policy that is not going to be changed for your benefit.
So continuing to show us your arguments will get you nowhere. Show us the published sources making your arguments. --Yaush (talk) 05:19, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your advice Yaush. The problem here is Wiki was itself having a negative effect on the process of securing consideration of this matter by published sources. When academics are approached with evidence concerning the chronicle the usual response is a quick google which invariably leads to wiki and of course they are put off by the claim that it is a hoax. Consequently the former page sought to show this question has never been formally investigated or resolved.

By replacing published documentation of source scrolls with claims they do not exist the current page is misleading. [The page now conceeds one of the six documented sources of the former page, but confuses it with another as is evident from the photographs on the former page, all others are simply written out of existence]. Replacing the reviews on both sides of the question of the chronicles authenticity by only those on one side is biased. Even uncontentous parts of the former page such as the overview of content has been removed. Any specific point of concern upon the former page can be revisited, but most of it complies with wiki guidelines. I would direct you to the version in June here as someone later added a introductory paragraph claiming the chronicle was authentic- which appears to have largely provoked this problem. Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 11:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

PS That link misses the second half of the origional which is here. Your comments appear most relevant to the last section which can be deleted, but the remainder should be allowed the opportunity to be revised to better meet wiki standards rather than simply obliterated within hours of first being tagged. Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 12:09, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Chief inspector, we can't find things from your links, at least I can't. Did you mean to make a "diff" in your PS? Please look at the Simple diff and link guide, it's short and easy. (Don't look at Help:Diff, whatever you do, it's long and baffling.) Bishonen | talk 15:00, 30 December 2014 (UTC).
Bishonen, Not sure whats going on here- both my above links work from my end. Here is the url of the intended page if that helps, if not its in the page 'chronicles of Eri > view history > 29th June

http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Chronicles_of_Eri&oldid=614822426 Material relating to reviews is in the section 'contentions upon authenticity. Source scrolls are covered in the section of the same name. Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 16:20, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I think we have established well enough in the scattered discussions relating to this issue that Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age has failed to cite a single source meeting Wikipedia reliability guidelines for assertions that the Chronicles of Eri are anything but a hoax perpetuated by Roger O'Connor. Accordingly, any claim to the contrary is original research, and this topic can be closed. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:22, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

The only detailed study conducted into the chronicle was by a German LA Albert [nom de plumb] or Hermann - as detailed in the former page. He published the only two books dedicated to this matter. Why do you allege he and the others who concluded the chronicle was authentic do not meet Wikipedia reliability guidelines. In addition I can post links to discussions on your kingpin MacAlister which show that he cannot be cited as a reliable source as he was writing with respect to a book by Perry [a British Israelite] , he does allude to the chronicle in passing but in making the same blunders as earlier critics regarding its content, authorship and even the language it is translated from start to finish shows he could not have read anything more of the chronicle than an earlier calumination. These facts can be confirmed by anyone prepared to look at MacAlister's article. Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 19:28, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not cite books published in 1830 as reliable sources. Though even if we did, we'd need to know a lot more about Albert/Hermann before we'd cite him. And for the umpteenth time, we aren't interested in the slightest in your opinions as to what is or isn't a 'blunder' or 'calumination'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:47, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Aberts book dates from over a century after you claim, and in any event I don't understand why its date is relevant. What you allege are my opinions on MacAlister are in large part formed from reading discussions of the matter in forums and the like. These 'opinions' are not as you claim, they are self evident to those who spend short time investigating the question. O'Connor never claimed his Gaelic was the same Phoenician language that MacAlister complains he was misspelling. Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 22:21, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Apologies for the confusion over dates - I'd misread the article. The point remains however that we don't know who Albert/Hermann is, and accordingly are in no position to assess his validity as a source for anything. And please stop wasting our time with your endless pointless explanations of why you think your opinions are of any significance - WIKIPEDIA DOES NOT BASE ARTICLE CONTENT ON CONTRIBUTOR'S ORIGINAL RESEARCH. This is not in any shape or form open to negotiation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:39, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your concession over the date. The fact remains that you proceed into allegations that simple demonstrable points raised concerning MacAlister are a matter of my opinion. I regard this as unfair for the reasons I pointed out before. If you are alluding to other opinions expressed on the former page, as I said I am happy to iron out whatever is deemed unfitting for purpose. You might elucidate your original allegation that I 'failed to cite a single source meeting Wikipedia reliability guidelines for assertions that the Chronicles of Eri are anything but a hoax perpetuated by Roger O'Connor' - are you still saying this? Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 00:31, 31 December 2014 (UTC) Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 00:31, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

There is nothing to 'elucidate' - it is a simple statement of fact. As is my statement that Wikipedia doesn't use contributors' original research to determine article content. And you have tried my patience more than enough. The article, like all others, will comply with policy - which means that content regarding your claims that the Chronicles are not a hoax will not be permitted. If you wish to publish your ideas on this topic, you will have to do so elsewhere. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:55, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

As I said before I do not expect to be treated any differently to anyone else regarding wiki protocols. Regarding reliable citations I can only direct you to the first 21 listed in the former page.

The fact remains this is a peripheral source. None of the reliable sources for the claim that it is a hoax contains reasoned argument upon the question one way or the other- they are just a series of rants. Under these circumstances it is in nobody's interest to seek to predetermine 'content regarding your claims that the Chronicles are not a hoax will not be permitted' as you seek to do. A toned down page replacing suggestions that the chronicle is authentic with suggestions that it warrants reevaluation is proposed. I understand you do not wish Wiki pages to appear as personal soap boxes and am prepared to reedit accordingly, however I would ask you not to employ wikis NOR protocol to seek to stifle reasonable presentation of the facts surrounding this matter. Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 10:29, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
Any chance that the ultimate issue here is lack of notability? The most recent reference is from 1941 and most of the article is based on sources from the 1800s. Are there any more recent secondary sources? If not, what makes this topic notable enough to belong in an encyclopedia? --Onefireuser (talk) 18:48, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

That is of course a valid question. I'd wondered myself, but held off raising the issue in case more recent sourcing could be found. At this point I think it is fairly safe to assume such sources don't exist. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:39, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

You are both largely correct in this assessment as far as I understand. The secondary sources are quite limited - nonetheless I had a look at wiki OR criteria and maintain that so long as I provide due citations for any claims made, they should be permitted to stand. I am not aware of what date is considered too old for citations- can you advise? Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 22:29, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

There is more to determining what constitutes a reliable source than simply age - the qualifications of the author in regard to the material being sourced is also a primary consideration - see Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources for further explanation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:36, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Andy the Grump- it is now 5 minutes to midnight so maybe a good time to wish you a happy new year! Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 23:58, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Is it possible for someone to move this to the talk page of 'chronicles of Eri'? Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 09:28, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

It isn't normal practice - I'll add a link to this discussion to the talk page though. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:14, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

The works of L. Albert Hermann referred to here appear to consist of (1) his preface to the 1936 edition of O'Connor's Six thousand years of Gaelic grandeur-unearthed (National Library of Ireland) and (2) a 1938 work entitled The buried-alive chronicles of Ireland: an open challenge to the "Celtic scholars" of Breo-tan and Er-I (NLI). The latter has a catalogue number of P2292, suggesting it is a pamphlet. If somebody were to read those, and find anything pertinent to the Chronicles – and especially if they revealed anything about the identity and notability of L. Albert Herman – then that might be worth a brief mention in the article. But in this version, linked to above, all that is said is that they "argued passionately for the case", and the only quote – from which publication I can't tell – is, "the war against the revelations of Eolus is not only a crime against truth, scientific honesty and the moral advancement of humanity, it must also be denounced as one of the most meaningless acts in the long history of human aberrations!". I suppose, if that quote could be properly cited, i.e. publication, date and page number, then it could be added to the current version of the article as a kind of counterbalance to the equally hysterical (and older) negative criticisms that are there. But really, it would be better if the Chief Inspector could give us something of the meat of Hermann's work, insofar as it actually casts light on O'Connor's work. Scolaire (talk) 19:51, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

P.S. Albert Hermann may well be this man here, whose theories attracted Heinrich Himmler, and who corresponded with him. Not trying to prejudice the case, just thought I'd mention it. Scolaire (talk) 20:46, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

To Andy- cheers- I asked as another thread was moved there from this same type of general protocol page and it seems better to collect this debate on the related page as I was earlier having trouble finding this page.
Scolaire - I hope this indentation works- not sure why you are fussed about it.
Regarding Albert, I acquired a copy of his first book but personally found it a little disappointing. For me the problem was that he had done an in depth study of the chronicle, but most of his argument could only be understood by those who already had a good knowledge of the chronicle. He focused on internal or presentation evidence which is of little use in the case of those unfamiliar with it. He was adamant that the chronicle was authentic and his work flows from a series of German publications following the translation of the chronicle into German in the 1830's. A series of related works in German appeared in that decade which appear to approve of the chronicle as they extend lengthily upon it though I have not taken time to translate them- I keep finding new stuff, for example a book here in French from a baron in Jersey I found today based his analysis of around 1000 Celtic coins found there on the chronicle. I have already collated much other more persuasive evidence suggesting the chronicle needs reevaluation and am now inclined to reject this along with other weaker recent stuff as I have found as there is peculiar and unexplainable universal outrage at my research which seeks to reevaluate the chronicle of Eri, which prompts me to believe there is something about this evidence that perhaps should not be known.
Another series of German works appeared in the lead up to the second world war- Herman's arguments reflect wider German interest and publications at this time, though his own work was never given much consideration even in Germany despite approving articles reviewing it in the press there.
Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 00:06, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
"I have found as there is peculiar and unexplainable universal outrage at my research which seeks to reevaluate the chronicle of Eri, which prompts me to believe there is something about this evidence that perhaps should not be known." No - no 'outrage' whatsoever. You are perfectly entitled to research the Chronicles', and you are perfectly free to publish the results of your research. Bur not on Wikipedia, since we do not permit contributors to use their own original research for article content. Your refusal to accept this elementary principle is getting beyond tedious, and at this point I can think of little reason why you shouldn't be reported for tendentious editing, with a view to getting you blocked from Wikipedia. The choice is entirely yours - you can comply with Wikipedia policy, like any other contributor, or you can take your 'persuasive evidence' and your silly conspiracy theories elsewhere. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:30, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
The terms what constitutes original research are set out: The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist. I do not see what gives you the right to try to stop the facts of this case being made known so long as they conform to this requirement. There are plenty published sources on both sides of the question of authenticity as you well know as illustrated in the former page, however you chose to dismiss them. Material supporting the chronicle contains much reasoned argument while material hostile to it does not. In any event this OR question can hardly apply to more than the current consensus on the chronicle, not its content, documentation on source scrolls etc. and as I said I was revising to respect this.
Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 11:10, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
The key word in your quote from WP:NOR is "reliable". You said earlier that "the only detailed study conducted into the chronicle was by a German LA Albert [nom de plumb] or Hermann". The fact that you could not be sure what the man's name was immediately raises a flag as to how reliable that source is. You also said, in the article, that "it seems possible his second work was never read by any of the scholars he was addressing as it currently is down to around 4 library copies worldwide." And now you're saying (I think) that you're "inclined to reject this along with other weaker recent stuff". Instead, you offer us a book "from a baron in Jersey". That doesn't sound awfully reliable either. Certainly, the mere fact that the author held a title does not make the book inherently reliable. On the other hand, the authors quoted in the current version of the article – and I'm not denying for a moment that it is one-sided – are all notable enough to have their own Wikipedia articles. Unfortunately for you, that's how it's got to be, unless and until you can come up with a demonstrably reliable source that supports O'Connor's theories. No reliable sources = original research; simple as that. Scolaire (talk) 12:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Thank you Scolaire. As I already said my proposal is to replace suggestions that the chronicle is authentic with that it warrants academic reevaluation. I think this should obviate this problem to a large extent.
I do not appreciate the grumps threats made at a time before he has even seen the first revision of a page that was a first edition of an author unexperianced in the tenacity of peoples views regarding protocols.
Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 12:51, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
It's your opinion that it warrants academic re-evaluation, Wikipedia shouldn't reflect that but what the sources say. Dougweller (talk) 13:10, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
I have suggested to Chief Inspector on his talk page that he do his revisions in his sandbox first, to make sure they are policy-compliant before adding them to the article. Scolaire (talk) 13:38, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
I'll try the sandbox. I do not question the general rules concerning secondary sources. The reason for suggesting to replace the primary suggestion that the chronicle is authentic with a suggestion that it merits further research is that this cannot be considered contentious. Questions concerning reviews thus become secondary.
Has anyone here found a single reasoned argument concerning the chronicle among what are deemed relliable sources? Is there is no allowance for your own assessments of this question, just blind faith the opinion of someone with the right letters after his name who shows he can't have read anything more than an earlier calumination by making the same errors? Who was reviewing another work and who had an axe to grind by virtue of his religously motivated work. Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 14:42, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
If you're agreeable to using the sandbox, then the OR issue can be considered closed, except to repeat that no, there is no allowance for your own assessments of any question: that's the definition of OR. If you want to take issue with the negative assessments that are in the article, then I am willing to open a new section on the article talk page, and we can leave the good people on the NOR noticeboard in peace. Scolaire (talk) 17:15, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Allright Scolaire. Appreciate your suggestions regarding the sandbox and use of colons here. Just one last question- it seems from the page you found Albert Hermann was a qualified archaeologist with his own wiki page. Does this make him a reliable source? Chief Inspector of Irish Iron Age (talk) 22:04, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
I'm reluctant to give an opinion on what is a reliable source. I've got it wrong in the past. I suggest you take that up on the article page as well. It really is time to say goodbye to this forum. Scolaire (talk) 23:02, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Watergate burglaries

Watergate burglaries (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Watergate burglaries was created on April 27, 2006 with the following edit summary: "Created from six years of research as a detailed comparative compilation of testimony and accounts provided by the participants in the first Watergate break-in, however contradictory". It has had an OR tag since September 24, 2007. Any thoughts on where to begin? - Location (talk) 06:05, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Wow, what a rabbit-hole trip that was, reading the first few weeks of work by the first author. The article at that time was 100% pure original research and nothing but. The first author, going by "Huntley Troth", just about went berserk when another user came in and tried to anchor the material with published accounts from the Watergate literature. What Huntley Troth wanted was to show his thesis that the Watergate burglaries were not about Nixon spying on the Democrats but about something larger, but he keeps his surprise ending to himself, only hinting that the CIA was creating a hoax to cover up another project of Nixon's. Quoting from the article: "The 'command post' room in the Watergate hotel had been rented by a person or persons unknown using counterfeit ID that the CIA had created and supplied to E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy about ten months earlier, on 23 July 1971 and 20 August 1971 respectively." This material reminds me of an unwritten book proposed by Ashton Gray to be called Watergate: The Hoax.
Huntley Troth had just experienced the deletion of another huge research project of his called Remote Viewing Timeline, which described how the CIA was using extra-sensory perception. Seeing that the article was about to be deleted, he added external links such as this to a handful of articles. The links brought the reader his own hosting of the material, archived here.
What I'm getting at is that the Watergate burglaries article was founded on nutjob conspiracy theory, and as you imply, cannot be saved. I think it should be deleted altogether. The only salvageable material, sourced to reliable books, is already used as background in the main Watergate article. Everything else should be deleted. Binksternet (talk) 07:54, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the background. I had no idea that this originated as someone's conspiracy theory. I agree with the redirect to Watergate scandal where relevant material about the actual burglaries can be added. I cannot see that a fork is warranted at this time. I'll try to clean up some of the redirects, too. Thanks again! - Location (talk) 22:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
I would delete per WP:BLOWITUP, which is allowed. If someone wants to create a new article that's fine but it is much easier to write a reasonable article from scratch than to improve a bad one. TFD (talk) 23:34, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
This is the best fix. [15] Spumuq (talk) 14:32, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Did US Republicans and Democrats swing left in the 2014 elections?

At Talk:Politics of the United States#Did Republicans and Democrats veer left in 2014?, I contend that the sources at [16], [17], and [18] indicate that both US Republicans and Democrats ran on a substantially further-left platform than they have in recent decades. Only one other editor responded, saying that the right-wing Democratic Blue Dog Coalition has shrunk from 54 congresspeople in 2008, to 26 in 2010, to 14 in 2012, to 9 in 2014. Would you please share your opinion as to whether the general assertion that both parties ran on more liberal platforms is reasonable to include in Politics of the United States? EllenCT (talk) 00:58, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

It might be okay to state it as an opinion of some commentators. However, it would probably run afoul of NPOV to state it as a fact. For example, see this WSJ article, which says "Democrats predicted the incoming class of Republicans would push the House GOP further to the right." --Onefireuser (talk) 03:43, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
I agree that WP:NPOV would require including that along with the former opinions, and neither in Wikipedia's voice, with author attribution by name and affiliation in the article text. EllenCT (talk) 02:36, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Terminating a Syrian Governorate and starting a terrorist Wilayat

I'm baffled by these actions taken:

Article before changes reflected that Ar-Raqqah Governorate was one of 14 2nd level divisions of Syria. [19] After an original research series of edits it was a former political division in Syria. [20]. As in ended, former, now part of a new country (ISIL) and a new terrorist province gets an full article [21] as part of the "Islamic State Caliphate"

My tentative conclusion is that an otherwise good editor has been reading too much terrorist propaganda and decided to make Wikipedia the first and only to recognize ISIL as a country with 2nd level divisions. What to do about this? Legacypac (talk) 01:19, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Hey, I checked the editions. The editor should be cautioned for his editions. Wikipedia is not a mean for propaganda and/or self promotion. Mhhossein (talk) 03:52, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
You are welcome to caution me, but for what? What rule has been violated? You apparently have little clue over Wikipedia guidelines.GreyShark (dibra) 06:47, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
OK, to put you in the picture I should say that based on your contributions unfortunately you seem a Single-purpose account who is not here to build an encyclopedia!! Mhhossein (talk) 07:53, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
I'm a single purpose account? Wow, you are certainly unaware whom you are talking to...GreyShark (dibra) 08:15, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
To whom? simply to an editor among millions of editors! Mhhossein (talk) 18:18, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
Nazi Germany was a terrorist state, but we still have articles about it. Wilayat al-Raqqa of ISIL is a terrorist province; what propaganda has to do with it? The fact is that the Syrian al-Raqqa Governorate was captured by terrorists, doesn't make it a memorial article.GreyShark (dibra) 06:47, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
who gave the right to declare the end of a UN State and the creation of a new country run by terrorists? Way beyond OR. Legacypac (talk) 07:38, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
What end of UN state? what country ran by terrorists are you talking about? Syrian Arab Republic?GreyShark (dibra) 08:15, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

The article Wilayat al-Raqqa (ISIL) is a well sourced description of the self-proclaimed administrative division of a terrorist organization ISIL - this is sourced from

  • Reuters "Syria's eastern province of Raqqa provides the best illustration of their methods. Members hold up the province as an example of life under the Islamic "caliphate" they hope will one day stretch from China to Europe."
  • Al-Akhbar "ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) increased its grip on "Wilayat al-Raqqa", the capital of the Islamic State. It is setting the foundation of its rule through courts, resolving disputes between civilians, and social committees serving the "Muslims" inside the borders of the province."
  • The ISIS Threat: The Rise of the Islamic State and their Dangerous Potential "In addition to the 7 Iraqi Wilayah, the Syrian divisions largely lying along existing provincial boundaries, are Al Barakah, Al Kheir, Al Raqqah, Al Badiya, Halab, Idlib, Hama, Damascus and the Coast."

The legality of ISIL and its structures like administrative divisions or military wing is not a parameter whether to include it in Wikipedia, and an experienced user should be familiar with the policy. ISIL is certainly a pariya and we can barely even call it an unrecognized state; its methods are terrible and its radical ideology is comparable with the Nazis. Nevertheless, we should have an article on ISIL and if relevant ISIL-related issues are covered by WP:RS and are notable, we can have articles on them as well.GreyShark (dibra) 08:52, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

[22] where you ended the existence of Raqqa Gov. We have not even done that for the areas the Kurds took over and reorganized after the Govt walked away. An experienced editor should be aware that Wikipedia should not be the first to declare the existence of a new country.
The three sources prove my point, not yours. Reuters refers to the country "Syria's eastern province of Raqqa" not "ISIL's Wilayah of Raqqa" al-Akhbar puts "Wilayat al-Raqqa" in Scare quotes meaning they don't accept the term, and the book is describing ISIL's claim, not legitimizing it.
The creator of the article and inserter of extraordinary claims is the one that needs to source those extraordinary claims. You'll need a lot better sourcing for the extraordinary claim that a Syrian province ceased to exist and a new government in a new country now exists.
I'm hoping for some admin or at least uninvolved user input here. Legacypac (talk) 17:55, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

See also this edit and related edits around it which say that that Syria and Iraq no longer have various provinces. Piping Iraq to Mesopotamia and Syria to Syria (region) when referring to the countries seems very POV and suggestive that the counties are no more and ISIL is a country. Legacypac (talk) 03:54, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

GreySharkI would also like to echo Legacypac's sentiments on an otherwise good editor who I have seen, amongst other things, make excellent and thought provoking contributions in forums such as WP:RM. I also do not see a necessary problem of an alleged use of a single purpose account on condition that the account is being used to present balanced NPOV content. I am concerned that, even though that you did not seem to provide cited reference your earlier mentioned additions; that, despite the fact the first reference you mentioned on this page referred to "province" and despite the preference in English Wikipedia to use English and despite the common use of words like province and governorate for Willayat, you still used Wilayat in your text and you still piped a nonsensical "... [[Mesopotamia|Iraq]] and [[Syria (region)|Syria]] ... With both the Tigris and the Euphrates running through Syria and with any level of attention being paid to water sheds it is clear that vast swathes of this country are firmly within the land of the two rivers. Daesh is a geopolitical organisation and should be considered in political terms in relation to the recognised political entities all around. GregKaye 10:44, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
It seems the issue here is not warrant for WP:OR noticeboard, but rather to general administrator's noticeboard - with Legacypac bullying against me for some personal reason (and also trying to break some wikirules on the way - like here). In addition, i don't see how putting information on wiki on the crimes of ISIL and their system of terror governance is problematic, if properly sourced. If anything, i'm among those who are downplaying the legality of ISIL - for example by moving "Province of Sinai" to "Wilayat of al-Sinai (ISIL)" to demonstrate it is an ISIL creation, not a valid "province" in the international view. Further, with the fracturing of Syria and Iraq, one has to remember that Syria article is about the Syrian Arab Republic (controlling 40% of pre-2011 Syria) and Iraq article is about Iraqi Arab Republic, which is together with Kurdish autonomy controlling just 2/3 of pre-2011 Iraq. I'm not saying Syrian Arab Republic and Syrian Arab Republic are gone and that occupiers of their territories (ISIL, JAN, Islamic Front, Ahrar al-Sham and FSA) are "legalized", but notable sources talk about Assad regime in a much lesser extent than whole pre-2011 Syria and same with Iraq. Province of Raqqa, unfortunately to Syrian Arab Republic, is terminated by ISIL terrorists, whether we like it or not. I'm not going to comment here any more, Legacy's tone is insulting and he doesn't want to cooperate with me.GreyShark (dibra) 19:11, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

GreyShark I did not agree with Legacypac's interpretation of a single purpose account but view various other issues raised as being valid. Even in regard to "Province of Sinai" and "Wilayat of al-Sinai (ISIL)", while I can see how the move can fit with good faith, it still seems like really tomayto, tomato to me. It still presents Sinai as being a province which is then attributed to ISIL in the title before readers even get to article content. I think that the other issues such as the piping of Mesopotamia are more relevant but were you familiar with related discussion at Talk:Ansar Bait al-Maqdis? One view presented "Best to wait and see if "Wilayat Sinai" will be picked up by enough sources" and Legacypac proposed (as was done at talk:ISIL) "ISIL in Sinai". I think that a move on as controversial a subject as this should, at the very least, have gone through WP:RM and don't see a justification for a unilateral move even when in good faith.

I am mainly compiling these stats to add ref to Talk:Ansar Bait al-Maqdis. GregKaye 12:54, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

to clarify, I never said Greyshark is a SPA. He does lots of good work, but is way outside consensus on this issue. Consider that all the related articles and redirects have been deleted now. There is no personal attack, just an effort to build consensus. Legacypac (talk) 19:56, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Dating Arba'een

If we are unable to find any reliable sources for dating the day of Arba'een in the Gregorian calendar, is it okay that we just add our own guesswork?[23]--Anders Feder (talk) 21:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Comment: It is not "our own guess work" at all. What source are you seeking more reliable than people of the world. They hold the occasions in it's due time. Same is correct for any other occasions held by non-Muslims and even non-religious people, based on their culture. People are live calendars. Mhhossein (talk) 00:59, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Wikipedia bases content on published reliable sources. This is policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:39, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Chinese Canadians in British Columbia

At Talk:Chinese_Canadians_in_British_Columbia#On_sourcing there is a discussion over whether it is correct to change instances of white" and say "other British Columbians" because of a belief that "ethno-focused" scholarship is being racist against Whites. I have not seen any specific page numbers/scans/actual source documentation saying that anti-Chinese sentiment was widespread among first Nations or blacks during the time period and the only sources I have available explicitly focus on anti-Chinese sentiments among Whites. I wrote an analysis of the edits which I ask you to read (if you wish I may re-post this analysis, along with the summary).

I would like to have feedback from editors familiar with the NOR policies. There are more details in the talk page section, in Talk:Chinese_Canadians_in_British_Columbia#POV_b.s._reinserted.2C_I_see, and in Talk:Chinese_Canadians_in_British_Columbia#annoyingly_POV_edit_comment. Please read these pages for more details. In the "On sourcing" section I listed the edits and relevant sources.

Disclaimer: I have been in several disputes with the other editor. I was trying to use WP:Third opinion but based on the last post I feel that I want feedback immediately. I believe that Wikipedia demands page citations and specific information to back up what you say and that this needs to be clarified ASAP. I believe this is not optional and non-negotiable. Am I correct in saying this? WhisperToMe (talk) 11:56, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Wow: There's a lot of discussion on those talk pages, so I haven't had a chance to wade through all of it yet. Can you try to summarize a bit more exactly what the dispute and arguments are? On first glance, though, Skookum1 does seem to be admitting to committing Original Research: s/he wrote "How do I know they're biased? I'm from BC and know the scope of its history and have watched this trend in academia unfold in recent decades." That certainly sounds like OR to me. As far as your question if OR should be purged ASAP, yes it should be purged as soon as possible, but no, it does not need to be purged immediately (as long as it's not about a living person...). There's a ton of poorly sourced material that is allowed to stick around for a little bit while editors work out how to fix it. --Onefireuser (talk) 17:47, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
This particular dispute started after I noticed a series of edits that changed text related to discrimination against Chinese Canadians during the earlier years. A lot of the edits removed instances of "white" and replaced them with "British Columbians" and "European Canadian" and/or "non-Chinese"
relevant edits
He argues that "ethno-centered" academia is being biased against White persons and therefore it's unfair to highlight White persons having anti-Chinese sentiment. I argue that if the sources specifically mention attitudes held by White persons, the article text needs to reflect that White persons held that attitude. I will link you to the cited sources and other relevant sources. Canadian government source with a section on White attitudes against Chinese, page from Yee book ( "For years there had been strident calls from white British Columbians to restrict the entry and activities of the Chinese. They were accused of driving out white labour and pushing down wages because they worked at lower rates." and "The Chinese were seen to be disease-ridden and morally and physically inferior to whites.") and also this book review ("it is evident from the nature of his source material that Dr. Morton did not set out to write a book about the Chinese in British Columbia, but only about white reactions to them." p. 136, or PDF p. 2/8.) - Even though the other party stated that First Nations and blacks held the same attitudes and had taken actions against the Chinese, there have been no specific page numbers/page scans/specific citations presented in which I could use to verify this information.
I also forgot to mention in one part the other party wanted to state as fact that the Chinese had were taking from British Columbia without giving anything back, while the cited sources only said it as a perception (Lim p. 17 and in the Canadian government page) - this is the topic in "POV b.s. reinserted, I see" WhisperToMe (talk) 18:02, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Your ignorance about Canada is on full display here; Digital Collections is a government-funded website, its content is not official Canadian government content; it is hosted on a govenrment server but contains all kinds of community-written material; and that it's hosted by the government doesn't mean that it's right. The CCNC version of the gold rush and railway construction was once on there; they revised it after complaints about its various exaggerations and gaffes. Politicized/PC content is also prevalent on DC pages; and the use of bad geography and discredited terms.....the cited sources saying "perception" say that to downplay the "white" (British Columbian-as-part-of-the-Empire) rationales; which are spelled out in Morton in point form, and discussed at length in relation to Arthur Bunster and other prominent colonials who wanted immigration from Britain and not from China as a settlement program; that was in fact one of the key provisions of the Carnarvon Terms which overridden Sir John A when he finally got back to getting the promised railway built after getting back into office, into the Victoria riding....whose residents had been promised they would be the railhead, anotehr Carnarvon Terms provision, but never told them that he would turn around and hire an American to bring in Chiense labour contractors. If he'd only order and read that book himself he'd learn all kinds of things his chosen narrow field of sources never mention or don't know/care about; but instead he's here imperiously demanding page-cites and NPAing a long time editor ad nauseam.Skookum1 (talk) 03:04, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
As an example of the fallibility and unreliability of the Digital Collections pages, "In the Gold Rush of 1858, hundreds of Chinese miners joined 30,000 gold-seekers heading to British Columbia." on this page of that site is quite wrong; a third of the 30,000 were Chinese i.e. around 10,000; sources:
  • Claiming the Land: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to British Columbia, Dan Marshall, University of British Columbia, Ph.D Thesis, 2002 (unpublished)
  • McGowan's War, Donald J. Hauka, New Star Books, Vancouver (2000) ISBN 1-55420-001-6
  • British Columbia Chronicle,: Gold & Colonists, Helen and G.P.V. Akrigg, Discovery Press, Vancouver (1977) ISBN ISBN 0-919624-03-0
Maybe WMT will actually read them; the PhD thesis may be out there on a webarchive somewhere; I have Dan's email address as he was the instructor of the fourth-year history course at SFU I took fall '03. But it's on fiche and can be obtained via interlibrary loan through university and some city libraries...even in Texas.
  • This is also false/distorted "The Chinese feared similar violence in British Columbia so they did not compete directly with white miners. Instead, they reworked sites that white miners said were worthless. In these deserted claims, they found several dollars worth of gold each day." Chinese had full rights to stake and this was affirmed and mandated repeatedly by Governor Douglas; thte "did not compete directly white miners is unadulterated bullshit, RS or not.Skookum1 (talk) 03:21, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
Your now properly-indented challenge/comment below you already know the answer to; I've told you ten times at LEAST that I'm in Asia and sold off my history books before I left Canada; I don't remember page-numbers of books I read, only their content, and your demands that I page-cite an explanation of what is in the books on a talkpage is out of line; and the bit above about Governor Douglas is in dozens of major BC histories and all over the source materials...and is rarely if ever mentioned by the school of invective-driven historiography so fashionable now; do they even know? Have they even read other histories of BC other than their own incestuously mutually-referenced claims? Seems not, or they'd acknowledge that Douglas and Begbie ordered and maintained equality for the chinese in the gold fields and in land ownership; DJ Hauka is coming up with a cite for Douglas' notion of a "commonwealth" of peoples in the new colony; he really doesn'st see where you're coming from btw (we know each other, I was a buddy of his eldest brother at Simon Fraser way back before you were even born). Again, WP:V does NOT apply to talkpage descriptions of what's in a source; you challenging me because I can't provixce you page numbers is uncalled-for and against guidelines as ongoing AGF of the very worst kind. I've told you, again, on numerous occasions, that I do not have the book anymore... you continue to treat me as if i am a liar and continue to show no signs of collaboration and cooperation; none at all.Skookum1 (talk) 18:20, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
If it's true that you sold the books, you cannot truly cite from them. One's memory, no matter how good, is not sufficient. You need the book itself and you need the pages in front of you. (That's why I asked, to be triple sure). If you sold the books, you need to get them back as soon as possible so you can use them. While I am interested in reading them, I am limited by my own current circumstances. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:41, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
Skookum, do you have any of these books in your possession? What page numbers say these things? WP:V clearly demands specific citation information. In regards to Morton, since these White-run newspapers may count as "primary sources" in this instance (Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary.2C_secondary_and_tertiary_sources discusses how to use primary sources) it will require for Morton himself to say explicitly that Chinese were taking from the land without giving anything back and to say so as fact. This is why page numbers are required: I actually need to know who said what and without page cites and the exact text it's impossible to establish whether something was said by the author or whether it was by one of the newspapers that the author quoted from. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:37, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
BTW I had said "this needs to be clarified ASAP" not necessarily that it needs to be purged ASAP. The question of whether this is original research needs to be clarified so all parties understand what original research is. WhisperToMe (talk) 10:07, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
BTW#2 the Canadian government page was specifically an official Library and Archives Canada page written by Paul Yee (same guy who wrote a book being used as a source). I say "government page" because Library and Archives Canada had sanctioned it to be a part of its collection, The Early Chinese Canadians, 1858–1947. WhisperToMe (talk) 09:02, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
It's OR to change "white people" to "non-Chinese" because we have no reason to believe that is what the writer meant. It could be that black people and aboriginals held the same views, but the writer does not say that. In any case, blacks were a small population with little political power, while aboriginals were not even allowed to vote. IOW whatever their views of the Chinese they were in no position to do anything, unlike the whites. TFD (talk) 19:37, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Agreed. It certainly looks like OR. However, if the sources that WTM cites does in fact only represent "ethno-centered" academia, then it might be helpful to also cite the secondary sources that talk about it being "ethno-centered" academia. Then both sides of the secondary sources would be represented, as long as we are careful to avoid creating false balance. --Onefireuser (talk) 01:26, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
About sourcing, I don't know if this counts as "non-ethno-centered" but I have: Hogg, Robert. Men and Manliness on the Frontier: Queensland and British Columbia in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Genders and Sexualities in History). Palgrave Macmillan, December 24, 2012. ISBN 0230250173, 9780230250178. p. 147. "In the white imagination, Chinese men were barely human, let alone manly." and "Gilbert Sproat, whose interests were not confined to the Aht, penned views that were representative of white anti-Chinese sentiment in British Columbia, and typical of the contradictions in white views which saw the Chinese as simultaneously inferior and superior." - What I really want is a source explicitly saying that blacks and First Nations felt the same way. WhisperToMe (talk) 06:39, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
Well, the "whites" thing gets used even though there were lots of non-whites in the goldfields and in BC in general other than "whites" and Chinese; that's why "non-Chinese" because Kanaka and black and Metis and others had the same reactions to seeing someone come along who'd bid for available work at 1/3 the pay. Chinese-biased accounts of the kind that WMT is only reading never get that; but then they're never read the actual histories of the time, and just don't know or realize about the true nature of non-Chinese BC, so put, and like WMT are very resistant to even being told about it. Taht so-called "reliable" sources' don't actually have reliability when compared to other evidence in the historical record is a syndrome in modern academia and media; accounts that are "in their way" they will deconstruct and criticize rather than address the actual material/events/people that t he author raises; which is exactly what the hostile reviews for In the Sea of Sterile Mountains are all about; yet that book has things in it that are either avoided or unknown to the body of scholarship now holding sway; as do other histories of BC and local histories that WMT doesn't want to research and would rather occupy his time, and ours and mine, waging battle to discredit me and the material I point out that his preciously biased sources don't know about or don't want to talk about; the massacre of the Camp 23 foreman near Lytton, the burning of one of their own who had leprosy, claim-jumping and quarrels with the native over placer mining on spawning streams; or any of the stories out t here about "white"-Chinese cooperation and mutual support, which are many. Good and bad, there's much more out there than in Googlebooks or on academic shelves and political diatribes; rather than go look for the resources I'm pointing to that he should read, he comes here and gets anal about page-cites and impugns my honesty as if I was lying about what I have read and what I know. It's not original research to correct a wrong usage used by an RS; and in Wiki standard "whites" should e "Europeans" now....if a source uses it it should be in quotes. Lord knows I couldn't put "the yellow man" and not see it changed to something less racial.....especially when "whites" is used in negative accounts, and others than whites and Chinese are involved, then it must be in quotes or as part of a quote. Funny how political correctness only works in one direction. If WMT had read about BC history before campaigning to rewrite it, he'd already know about the other non-"white" populations and he's also know about Camp 23, the reality that it was pressure from Imperial and Nationalist China and the UK that saw Ottawa pass the Head Tax increases, or that Chinese miners were protected by edict of the governor and had equal rights in the goldfields, and were an ongoing presence in teh Interior until mid-20th Century, all of those are what he is claiming I am lying about, without ever beginning to investigate. Same goes for your two opining that turning "whites" into "non-Chinese" is OR; you have no knowledge of the subject at all yet here you are on a discussion board kibbitzing about things you don't understand; and using faulty logic and suppositions; somewhere in a guideline it says "if you don't know the subject matter you should not take part in a discussion", that should be more heeded in Wikipedia big-time.....he doesn't know the subject matter either and apparently and rather adamantly doesn't want to....to the point of denouncing a long-time

Wikipedian, the one responsible for contributing massive amount of BC history/geography/town/bio content, including Chinese content on various town and gold rush and other pages; I'm not a racist, I'm not a liar, and I'm not stupid. But I am frustrated and irritated that this pretentious and widespread-by-one-hand 'PERSONAL ATTACK is being conducted, and there are claquers out there, equally uninformed, who chime in as chorus; but who haven't the knowledge of readings in the subject area to be qualified to comment. This discussion and WMT's allegations and demands and the overt insinuation that I am dishonest are RANK NPA and should be shut down; and him t old to stop pontificating about what he doesn't know yet, adn start reading adn to respect other Wikipedians of long standing who are in the way of his narrow mind an learn from them. I'm tired of this bullshit; and rather than go look at the many sources online I've indicated to him to broaden his understanding of bC and its history, he'll probably be back here with yet more long-winded complaints and demands. Somebody give his head a shake.Skookum1 (talk) 02:55, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Skookum, do you have possession of any secondary sources whatsoever that can clarify these issues? If you are in possession of any of these sources, please give page numbers and start quoting from these sources (preferably take pictures of the pages with your phone and/or make scans). What is needed right now are additional secondary sources and in order for them to be used they need to be in somebody's possession so they can be analyzed/quoted from. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:32, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
The sources that were cited were this Canadian government source, Yee p. 10/p. 11/p. 20, Lim p. 18, and also Worden book review of In the Sea of Sterile Mountains). I have made requests for exact page number citations of any sources that may help in the matter (i.e. those that explicitly say that First Nations/blacks/all other ethnic groups in British Columbia felt the same way about the Chinese, and those secondary sources that explicitly say that the Chinese were contributing nothing as fact, etc.). Any sources that present a different view/have additional information also need exact page cites. The other party says there are other sources, but has not provided page citations. I have made attempts to find information on First Nations/black attitudes towards Chinese in Google Books and haven't found anything.
  • The Worden review sometimes attributes statements to "British Columbians" and sometimes to "Whites." and that may be seen on . 347. On p. 348 (visible with a JSTOR account or I can send the PDF to you): "[...]white politicians continually pushed for a high head tax." and "The "problems" that the Chinese caused the British Columbians, and the white reactions to the Chinese[...]"
I agree that one can say "British Columbians reacted" in the general sense if the source attributes the actions to "British Columbians". For example: text I wrote stated: "White persons were also afraid that the Chinese would someday have more people than the Whites." (Cited to the Worden review p. 347: "Morton tells of the early fears of British Columbians that the Chinese would someday outnumber whites, of their desire to[...]") The article may say: "British Columbians were also afraid that the Chinese would someday have more people than the Whites." based on the source
Another thing: If any party has possession of the books then any party may be able to get the page cites and make scans. If somebody does not have possession of the books, should he/she be saying what is inside the books? Should someone be "citing" from a book he/she does not have possession of? WhisperToMe (talk) 01:52, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
Get a grip. I did own the book (sold it to MacLeod's Books in Vancouver where you can order it from, he should have other copies) and unlike you I have read it; if you are too lazy and cheap to order a copy, then presume to lecture about photocopying to prove something to you that you don't want to believe is true, or that you want as proof I'm not lying, as if I had any reason to, is b.s.; lots of pages on Wikipedia have only book cites, no page-cites, and those articles have stood for years; unlike you I've read more than just Chinese-oriented accounts of BC history; and remember what I read. Your implicit AGF here is really a covert but gross NPA; that Skookum1 is a liar, which I am not. Demanding 'give me page cites or I'm going to delete" is childish anality and instruction creep.Skookum1 (talk) 02:55, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Verifiability#Responsibility_for_providing_citations: "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution." and also "Cite the source clearly and precisely (specifying page, section, or such divisions as may be appropriate)." - If that's anal, you need to let the people who wrote WP:V know this. You are welcome to re-obtain the source at your leisure.I am interested in reading the sources, but as I stated before I have no responsibility in defending any of your claims. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:32, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment Cute, I'm the subject of discussion on an ANI board and didn't receive a notification even though things are being said about me. I just saw this now incidentally by looking at WMT's usercontributions; I see he's got another book review sans full title as From China to Canada, which given that it has a full name and is not a well-known book I'd say requires the subtitle. This discussion is out of order IMO, and is about the 30th such running-to-a-discussion board attempt by him to enlist support; I point him at sources other than his only-ethno-history pet selections, and he doesn't listen, instead demands I page-cite things already in other Wikipedia articles.
Other than the BC content I added to the article, and which he fought off or tried to on the recent RM to revert it to "of Vancouver" because of his stated userpage agenda of creating a global series of "ethnicity-by-city" articles, but he's wading into a subject that is not limited to the city, as it is impossible to separate Chinese history in BC from the rest of the place. Because of his obsessiveness about ethno-history academia and politically-driven viewpoints - and many of his sources are politically driven and use "whites" when in fact early non-native BC was multiracial (Hawaiians, Mexicans, West Indians, the governor was Guyanese and not white, and so on); these are things I KNOW from 50 years of readings that he hasn't had exposure to and apparently doesn't want to; his contributions are often TRIVIA, and/or UNDUE, and he only presents one side of the story...and to me, is very clearly hostile to anybody else's version of events, and I don't mean mine: I mean the books and other things, including Wikipedia articles, that he would rather demand line-cites for and lecture me as if I was a newbie...or a liar.
Yet I'm one of the main, if not the main, history/geographer contributors/editors in Wikipedia and "know my shit"; lecturing me and treating me as if I am dishonest, and seeking official recourse against me 20x odd times this last few months, amounts to very bad NPA. He could learn a lot from me, and broaden his understanding of BC/Chinese-in-BC history considerably; instead he demands page-cites even for talkpage mentions of "things out there" that the very biased drift of modern academia doesn't know about, or just doesn't want to acknowledge. The 'Chinese people's sufferings at the hands of whites' drift of so much of it, plus various statements given as if the general way of things, when stories/cites abound for those who have read broadly in BC history that put the lie to those very claims, which I have discussed on the talkpage.
I'm not conducting original research. He's the one doing that doing a massive SYNTH, just as he tried to do on the RM, stitching together sources of a certain kind, very selectively and IMO with a bit even worse than his sources, and the result is POV and SOAP and a mass of TRIVIA and UNDUE bits, not even put together cogently, but as if it were his own sandbox and he was working on a treatise; this is part of his WP:OWN behaviour on all article I've found him creating/working on. Fact of the matter, this article is a POV fork especially under its original title, Chinese in Vancouver. Chinatown, Vancouver, Golden Village (Richmond, British Columbia and Metrotown etc.

Talking bad about "white" people but never bad about Chinese people, as so common in those sources, that stories like Chinese crime activity and Chinese opposition to living next to hospices (because they bought their condos without knowing they overlooked a home for the dying) or Chinese who commit family-suicide because of bankruptcy......or not advertising real estate in Vancouver, but only in Hong Kong, and only in Chinese. The exclusion/discrimination felt by other Asians as well a whites in Richmond shopping malls, the driver's licensing bribery matter, the use of "culture" as a rationale for things like the hospice matter, or the indifference towards learning English; that's not on the agenda of the po-mo "new history: class, ethnicity, gender" school of so-called historiography (preaching, really) that typifies the kind of sources he's immersing in and finding snippets of and throwing them onto the article like darts on a board, with bad writing of a very "bald" kind.

All that is citable, the other issues re "Chinese in BC" and he'd know about it - if he knew the material before he started the article or was at least open to being told about it, instead of being so arduously resistant, and ardently disrespectful to somebody who knows more than he does about BC....and he full well knows I'm nowhere near the books in question (I'm in Asia and have been for most of hte last 2.5 years) but he's also behaving as if I'm lying or making it up; which is AGF and NPA and also just damned rude, given how much I've contributed to Wikipedia- including adding Chinese content to a host of town, geography, gold rush and other pages. And I provide online historical resources and other Wikipedia articles for him to read and pointers on which regional histories and town histories have material on the Chinese (all ignored by the ivory tower, unless looking for something to slam or misrepresent), and more.
And what does he do? Start an ANI without telling me? - after being imperious and AGF once again (for the 40th time) and demanding page-cites for talkpage statemetns; anal beyond belief IMO. @Themightyquill: has told him, despite my point-blank "tone", that I so know my stuff, as would many others. I'm not a liar or fabricator, which is the gist of his responses to me on so many pages, and is also implicit in this OR-ANI, and re that I commented that he's getting so bad about this that it was getting to be ANI-time and this isn't the board I mean. In fact, this whole discussion is an NPA attack impugning my honesty, my knowledge of the field (widely respected by many in Wikipedia and on news/zine forums aplenty), and waging procedural war on me is all personal attack, and then some. He doesn't OWN this article, he'a a neophyte in BC history and doesn't know the field and he's presuming to claim OR even for talkpage mentions when he hasn't even got his own feet wet in much more about BC than the narrow and biased lens of ethno-history and nothing else.
It's hot, I've gotta get out of my room; I've spent another hour responding to this,and really should tot up the number of hours in the last few months dealing with WMT' insulting stubborn-ness. He should read, not lecture somebody has - even lecturing me on how to deal with photocopies of copyrighted material - and learn to respect those who know more than him; and instead of that, demand footnotes, as per the bit from Bo Yang about exactly his behaviour/attitude, and in so many words.
This ANI is out of order, and is part of a broader AGF/NPA towards me that I think should get disciplinary treatment against him....but I've spent too many hours on all this already. I know the material; he doesn't...and apparently would rather wiki-war than learn.Skookum1 (talk) 08:39, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment I want feedback immediately. Your lack of patience and demanding nature are in every discussion you've launched; the world does not revolve around you; you are are hasty and rude - yet seem to revel in wasting the time of others...on demand and "I want it NOW".Skookum1 (talk) 08:45, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
1. You were informed. 2. This isn't ANI. WhisperToMe (talk) 08:51, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
    • I never saw it, and gee, could it be that you tucked it in between posts from December 27 and December 30, and not at the bottom of the page where it's supposed to go? Could that be why hm? And did you or did you not notice that I was in a life-crisis as I'd told you on repeated posts (eviction and destitution in a foreign country, you've never been there, so don't judge)? I really don't think you wanted me to know or you would have put it at the bottom of the page per normal usertalkpage conduct; I got other "you have messages" that same day, your hidden notice was far up the page, out of sight of the newer posts I did see; I found out about it indirectly only by looking at your usercontributions; my, you're a busy boy, huh? You're so anal about cites and guidelines, why so sloppy with an important notification of this kind? Never mind, your lack of AGF towards me is rank and continues to be; and you don't pay attention....how many times have I told you I DID own Morton? and sold it before leaving BC in '07, and I've told you where you can order it from so you can look up the friggin' page numbers yourself - though for things I say on the talkpage about what's in it, I sneer at those demands which aren't in any guideline; nor is your claim that cites without page numbers will be deleted; that's just control freakery and it's not collaborative; @Moonriddengirl: I see there's been yet more speculative interpretations/interpolations here since I last logged in; my internet has been off the last day and a half, and power all day yesterday. the imperiousness and impatience of this individual, and his ongoing attacks on my credibility and honesty, are beyond the pale of acceptable conduct. Until he is told to respect me and believe me when I tell him something is in a given source, or given events happen, he will continue to snot his nose at me as he continues to do; that bit with the notification is very snakey, it's not normal practice to hide such a notification like that? How can somebody so particular about the nit-pickieset things re guidelines and cites be so sloppy? Deliberately, IMO, is how.Skookum1 (talk) 08:42, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment @Moonriddengirl: in your exegesis above you interpret/assert that me calling him "ill-informed" is an NPA. THAT is yet more instruction creep; NPA is for things like calling someone a turkey or bozo or stupid; "ill-informed" is a statement of FACT: "he doesn't know the material".....but man he likes to posit ORs about it and denounces me for telling him about things he doesn't know about yet, or just doesn't want to give credence to because it flies in the face of what he thinks he knows from his choice of sources. Tell him to go buy Morton and get teh page cites; dammit he should read it, he might learn something about what he doesn't know; god forbid. This OR/ANI continues to be, imo, a personal attack and against good faith in extremis and he continues to use this as yet another discussion-board platform to post his arguments, over and over and over, as he has done in 20 other places. He seems to have all t he time in the world to write thse manifestos and commentaries. I don't have time to reply to all the bullshit he's posted above since I last logged in; as a matter of fact I won't read it, he's talking into his own megaphone and I have, yes, a life-crisis underway. I tell him where sources are, what's in them, what else he could investigate, provided links of all kinds to other kinds of content his sino-biased modernist sources say and what they don't say; or what tyhey say that's WRONG> "Unreliable sources" is a big problem in history, likewise in news/events coverage; he's wallowing in them, IMO, and being openly hostile to anything that differs from what they say; his comment rationalizing Digital Collections as a "government site" is just more ill-informedness; Digital Collections' content is not "sanctioned" by the federal government and is not "patrolled" or fact-checked; only funded and hosted, that's it. Same with Living Lansdscapes and similar govermment-funded sites; there is no political/editorial control of Digital collections...more's the pity, because they get their facts wrong quite regularly...as does the Canadian Encyclopedia (see above about "unreliable sources").
As for the Hunter Jack matter, folks I'm in contact with in Lillooet have copies of the local histories (Harris, Edwards, Green, Cunningham) with passages about him, and likewise about the Chinese; I'll ask my friend who is the curator of the Lillooet Museum to look page-numbers up for me; my own digital copies are on a portable hard drive that crashed Xmas Eve; SHE knows I know what I'm talking about; in Lillooet I'm a respected local historian and geogrpahic commentator; to this WP:BRAT in Texas I'm not to be believed, and am conducting "original research" as if I'm a liar. 'WHICH I AM *N*O*T*. No doubt he'll go to that article next and put his obsessive page-cite tags on it; nobody else has had a problem with book cites there or on dozens of other pages; a book cite is valid, his extrapolation of what he claims WP:V/WP:RS say is just more SYNTH on his part, as analyzed previously above.As with many things he says in response, despite his BA and native-speaker status he seems to have comprehension problems and oh yeah logical shortcomings and then some. Somebody dress him down, I'm tired of this ongoing bullshit; he is not contributing to the article with this conduct, or this OR; he is being destructive/obstructionist and not constructive and seems intent on attacking me and anything I say. I wasted all day the other day replying to his ongoing b.s. and personal attacks/insinuations; more will come no doubt, but I have an income to find so I can see a doctor and pay my rent/eat; not everybody lives in dorms or with their parents. I can't believe he's an admin, frankly, and IMO has taken that petty badge of minor authority to presume to Supreme Judge and Executioner and Head Wiki-Honcho. @DocumentError: I'll write you privately to lay out what i see is wrong with teh article, as there's no point in doing it "in front of him" as he'll write another "100 page treatise, with footnotes, telling me why I am wrong" (paraphrasing Bo Yang). If you can't win with simple discussion, baffle 'em with bullshit; it's the oldest game in the book - in academia even more than in politics or bureaucracy.
The article's drift under his direction is pointedly POV and he's hostile to anything in the way of that, that's very clear by now. I did briefly note some comment about Morton above; and yet another query about "do I own the book?" when I've told him six times I haven't though I did; I also dont' own Early Vancouver (Maj. Mathews) or Vancouver:From Milltown to Metropolis (Alan Morley) and a whole bunch of other things I once had anymore; all things he should have read before presuming to take charge of a very important side of BC history/society; instead of being a complete WP:DICK about someone telling him about things in other sources; see WP:BRAT which is about someone else, but fits him, like the Bo Yang quote, to a 't'. He's not an authority on BC history, nor even on its historiography. It's so ironic that HE brought this to this board, as his ongoing behaviour is building a thesis based on his spotty and selective readings of biased sources; anything in teh way of that thesis/SYNTH (which for now happens to be me) he's clearly hostile to and suspicious of; credulous on hte one hand about nearly any piece of bunk from his ethno-sources, and suspicious and hostile towards any possible source or person that might dispute that bunk and/or bias. Enough already. If this kind of behaviour is what comes out of colleges these days - maniacal on cites and formats and rules, but parroting content without any COMMONSENSE.... or any courtesy towards those who dispute what he thinks he knows. Again, I'm not the problem here; his original research and imperious AGF/NPA toward me are. And again, he's spent time here working on his attacks against me, instead of using the sources I linked for use on the article which I compiled while y'all were here talking about me.....that hidden-notification business stinks, something's rotten there IMO. Not normal; but then none of his behaviour is, even by wikipedia standards; I'm really quite nonplussed that you give him the kid-glove treatment about his AGF/NPA towards me....especially considering you're so sensitive about NPA as to describe "ill-informed" as a "personal attack". I'm going to de-watchlist this now, he's just going to keep on fluffing it on his ongoing ego-trip and his interpretations of sources= on going SYNTH. If there are no edits by him using the online resources I provided before he posts his next huge post/OR ramble here or on another page, you have your answer; he's more interested/active in being a talkpage/discussion board prof-pontificator than in actually learning about the subject or being collaborative in any way or, in fact, even using available sources to improve the article when provided by me...instead continuing his attacks/SYNTHing; actions speak louder than words, and I don't see any constructive action from him here, or on the article. Get it?Skookum1 (talk) 09:17, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Skookum1, I have no exegesis on this page. You should be careful to keep these conversations separate. This is WP:NOR, not WP:ANI. I will not address the behavioral issues I have here, but there. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:04, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
As explained on my talkpage, I had the two discussions confused; I thought that bit was in your exegesis that led this discussion off; this whole discussion continues to have behavioural problems coming from him; other than t hat, this is really a NPOV board issue, as his agenda is clearly POV and he's clearly hostile to any input which disputes his soapboxing and POVitis.Skookum1 (talk) 05:53, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 Comment: Let's look at this edit: "replacing racist "Whites" used in the source with proper expansion about who they were; dismissing/generalizing about "whites" is a bad habit in ethno-history, but "only white people can be racist" is the dictum."
  • It replaces "[...]anyway but they were chased away from the polls by Whites." with "[...]anyway but they were chased away from the polls by supporters of David Oppenheimer, a rival candidate who was to become the city's second mayor."
  • The references were not changed. No new references were introduced. That means that Yee p. 20 is still the cited source.
  • I took a look at Yee p. 20. The name "Oppenheimer" is not mentioned. The page's title is "Our First Civic Election for Whites Only". The page recollection states "The white men shouted at the Chinamen and the Chinamen turned and ran." The name Oppenheimer does not appear and the page does not identify those men as supporters of David Oppenheimer.
  • Through the edit history and in no later revision has a new reference been put in place. Yee p. 20 is still cited. Yee p. 20 does not directly support the cited sentence. Wikipedia:Verifiability says: "All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material." (my emphasis added) If a new source was added to support the new material, this would be okay.
This is why I wanted clarification through the OR board as soon as possible. I believing editing needs to reflect what the sources actually say and if this is important to Wikipedia (and I believe it is) it needs to be made clear by the whole community.
WhisperToMe (talk) 03:28, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
What I think needs making clear to YOU is that your AGF behaviour and board warring about things you haven't any clue about is disruptive and not collaborative in any way; And as for you little incantation of WP:V there, that's for QUOTES and not general mentions of sourced books; it's also NOT RELEVANT for talkpage discussions. You are extrapolating and rule-mongering/instruction-creeping in extremis, and have spent vast efforts here trying to quibble on points, making claims about guidelines by distorting them as you have just done here. I have showed your diatribes to a well-known author, in fact a source, who happens also to hav a Wikipedia account; he's compiling some sources relevant to all this, and for my part I'm writing people in Lillooet who have various books; and will get someone in Vancouver or thereabouts to go to the local library and get your page-cites for Morton; but I'm not QUOTING Morton, I'm only explaining in the talkpages what is in the book; which your negative-reviewers you have found don't do. Your imperious and deletionist attitude is more than tiresome; it is un-Wikipedian. And gee, for all your efforts here, you have ignored all the cites I located on nosracines.ca and Living Landscapes for you to read and use. You are more interested in defaming me and censoring the article to fit your POV than you are in actually working on the article, that much is very clear by now; all you've done is applaud someone else on that talkpage for mis-stating my position; which is fine with you, because that's what you do, TOO. That your article is POV fork whose contents are at odds with a dozen or so other articles with related content you are oblivious too, or just don't give a damn about huh? Why are you spending so much effort here and not on using sources presented for you to LEARN FROM AND USE?? Never mind, I know the answer; you are sole author of that article, or trying to be, and want to get rid of me and will ignore and challenge everything I say so you can use it as a ethno-politics soapbox. There are two or more sides to one story; you want to muzzle and delete the other side. Time for you to take a modesty pill, apologize for being such a %@Q%@% about this business about page-cites and STOP claiming guidelines say what they don't say, but you'd like them to. page-cites are, per t he quote you just gave, are when QUOTES might be challenged; I have made no quotes from Morton or Harris or Green or anyone else, neither on the article NOR on teh talkpage. Get a grip on your ego and your POV; you are not furthering consensus or collaboration at all with this ongoing conduct. Have you looked at even one of the many source-cites I came up with while you were ranting and repeating yourself here? I highly doubt it, you have clear biases in terms of what you will accept as sources; pretty arrogant for a guy who didn't know anything about BC at all a few months ago.....Skookum1 (talk) 05:09, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
" And as for you little incantation of WP:V there, that's for QUOTES and not general mentions of sourced books;" - That is not correct. That applies to anything likely to be challenged and that includes non-quotes.
  • Wikipedia:Verifiability#Responsibility_for_providing_citations: Attribute all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." - As you can see, the edit in question did not reflect the source. I am challenging it. Anything not obvious is very likely to be challenged.
Wikipedia's job is to serve the readers. Readers may be skeptical of what we editors put in. Our job is to help the readers verify what we write, and it's important to show them where we get our information. If we didn't put in specific citations and just said "Oh we heard it from our neighbor" I don't think our readers will be satisfied. Our readers won't accept because I know the material when they say "I can't find it in the book". They will accept "see this material in the book."
Even if we don't consider what the policy says, I think it's clear that having exact page cites is the best practice and I don't think it's helpful to challenge that.
WhisperToMe (talk) 05:20, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
In ideal circumstances, yes, but challenging everything a long-time editor known for his historical expertise inside and outside Wikipedia because you WP:IDONTLIKEIT so persistently and obstinately, and frankly, very rudely, is not helpful nor constructive in any way. That you have never heard of something but someone else tells you about it is no reason to come crying to a discussion board to seek redress and make yet more lengthy and repetitive posts with bad logic and your claims about what a guideline says (when it doesn't) is disruptive and pointless; you are impatient, and behaving ignorantly; and readers don't read talkpages discussions. Your notion that "I don't think it's helpful to challenge that" is just more rule-mongering and instruction creep; the guideline (that's not a "policy", another of your ongoing distortions) is ONLY ABOUT QUOTES. Native speaker or not, I think your reading comprehension skills are even worse than your manners, and even worse than your faulty logics/claims. You are not the boss, and what you think the guidelines should mean when they don't say what you want is completely irrelevant; in fact, it's OR about the guidelines, which makes you bringing this here all the more bitterly ironic.Skookum1 (talk) 05:30, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
Every editor, new or longtime, should be held to the same standards and uphold the same standards. Also, on those talk page discussions were trying to determine article scope and content and in those cases it's necessary to consult sources. When there is a challenge to material within the article, and this challenge is occurring on the talk page, it's necessary to bring up sources and what they say. Curious article readers can and do read talk pages. They are an open book. So do researchers, politicians, and who knows who else. WhisperToMe (talk) 05:38, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
You mean maybe the author who's watching all this and thinks you'er full of it huh? Again, to repeat what you do not wish to acknowledge, as with so much else, the guideline (which is NOT a "policy") says nothing about talkpage discussions and does NOT apply to anything other than QUOTES. If you want to rewrite the guideline, you're gonna have to do it via consensus; and you will be opposed, and not just by me; go work with those cites I came up with, and start reading instead of pontificating about what YOU think the guidelines mean. You are not the boss, but you sure are behaving as if you were Supreme Inquisitor. Your hostility towards anything that doesn't match your POV/thesis is very obvious, and you spend more time arguing your non-case than you do reading sources provided; "who knows who else" might read the talkpage is a good point; and your obstinacy and hostility are on full display and on the public record; you are not being contructive, you are being obstructive and contrarian and disruptive, and THAT is a policy, not a guideline.Skookum1 (talk) 05:47, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment re your comment "he wrote "How do I know they're biased? I'm from BC and know the scope of its history and have watched this trend in academia unfold in recent decades." That certainly sounds like OR to me. ", OR applies to articles only, does it not? Or are all talkpage discussions governed by this much-abused guideline? Commenting on the bias of sources based on my considerable experience of them is fair game on a talkpage in my books, and IMO WP:BS WP:URS needs to be written for "unreliable sources" ("bad sources") that contain wrong information or which are POVB/bias-driven; all too often they're academic, and at odds with the facts of real history.Skookum1 (talk) 05:53, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
    • Oh, that acronym is taken to, seems like that passage about questionable sources needs amending re opinion/POV-flavoured academic papers and not a few newspapers and media outlets.Skookum1 (talk) 06:09, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

 Comment: Again, using page cites to back up evidence and prove your point is the best practice. Please stop fighting me on that matter. I have two pieces of evidence.

  • 1. Talk:Kweilin_Incident#Translations - A Chinese editor interested in translating Kweilin incident into Mandarin found chapter cites instead of page cites made it clear that the Chinese Wikipedia wanted page cites: "They also prefer to have the exact page number for the footnotes on the Chinese site, and I do not have full access to Crouch's chapters, so WhisperToMe you may need to do it for me :P." - I used Google books and gave them their page cites.
  • 2. es:Wikipedia:Consultas_de_borrado/Liceo_Mexicano_Japonés - It was a very long, strenuous effort, but thanks to page cites a bunch of Wikipedians all over the globe (Mexico, Colombia, Japan, USA, etc.) saved this article es:Liceo Mexicano Japonés from deletion. When an editor asked me to hunt down a master's thesis to help prove the notability, I went on Reddit and a student at the University of Southern California gave me the relevant pages of the master's thesis and that one thing rescued the article (I shared copies with the other editors). I thanked him by giving him Reddit Gold and he deserved it 1000 times over! Saying "I am an expert in Japan and I know my stuff" would have been completely ineffective. I needed hard evidence, and it's the hard evidence that saved the article and it's the hard evidence that is now the heart of this beautiful article on Japanese culture and society in Mexico.

WhisperToMe (talk) 16:32, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

  • Reply why don't you get a grip on your ego and backtrack from setting yourself up as Supreme Inquisitor and Executioner and stop being so goddamned arrogant about you "saving an article. Your demanding page-cites for talkpage mentions of events and issues you don't know anything about and are behaving extremely pushily and arrogant about; that's not called for by the guideline you are claiming is a "policy" even though you clearly want every item anywhere to page-cited even though you have no intention of ever seeing the book yourself. In fact, once I get someone from back home who has the book(s) and provide the page-cites, your AGF behaviour/attitude towards me will no doubt cause you to claim that I'm making up the page-cites. BACK OFF Not everybody in the world operates on your time-frame and this is a consensus environment, not one where you are the boss like you are presuming yourself to be. Give it a rest on this supposed OR campaign, which to me is just procedural warfare on your part, as you don't like the message that I carry and have tried to educate you about. Get using those nosracines.ca site and the Living Landscapes bit; you'll find more on community histories on the many community museum/archive/history pages out there, which from what I can tell you haven't done piffle to try to find; Donald J. Hauka is sending me Dan Marshall's Thesis Claiming the Land, which he has access too, and is researching various sources and books to rebut various things you have thrown up baldly and without content and with much disputability on the article; and folks in Lillooet who have the local histories don't operate on WhisperToMe's imperious and haughty timeline either. Your behaviour and sophistry just gets deeper and deeper and uglier and uglier, and you haven't lifted a finger to use all the cites I compiled while you were busy making your over-long and off-base complaints/distortions about me. Do you understand the meaning of cooperation? No, apparently not, as Bo Yang also observed about your kind of behaviour. You have much to learn about BC history; and also abotu dealing with people in a manner other than a freshlyminted junior professsor with something to prove. Who cares if you've "saved" another article by using Reddit? I mean, really who cares? It's just a brag, and has nothing to do with your ongiong ugly AGFness towards me. Either be patient or shut up and work with the cites/resources I've come up with while you're conducting procedural war against me.
Intellectual flatulence, sophistry, and rule-happy wiki-copping arrogance and deletionism is all I see from you; did you even look at one f the nosracines pages? The City Directory pages? No, you were here shooting your mouth off about how great you are and how I can't be believed, despite being 59 years old and more educated about BC history and geography than you will ever be. I'm also suffering frmo ill-health, your harassment and pressure are not helpful and you are supposing yourself some kind of 9th Dan Wiki-ninja with undeserved power over others. If you are not patient it's a syndrome of those who prefer to judge than to ACCEPT GOOD FAITH. You clearly have no respect for others or would never have behaved as you have towards me this last couple of months. Your aggressive demands for page-cites on talkpage mentions of sources that I recommend that you read are so off-base that it's beyong silliness; it's insanity. OCD or whatever. I repeat, the world, and the rest of Wikipedia, are not your subjects or employees, and your impatience with an older contributor who has told you he is in ill-health is really disturbing to see coming from someone who presumes to some kind of higher moral wiki-authority.Skookum1 (talk) 17:21, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
@DocumentError:, @Moonriddengirl: you have both offered to mediate or arrange mediation; but this is impossible so long as he continues his unrelenting attacks and patronizing AGFs and shows no sign whatever of respect for anything I say, or for the real world beyond his bubble where people have bills to pay and time is in limited supply. He seems to have lots of money behind him to be able to spend so much time writing attacks against me, and making impatient time-demands for page-cites for talkpage mentions of books he's never heard of nor ever intends to read; if he starts deleting my talkpage commentaries because they're not page-cited that's beyond the pale of acceptable conduct; my time is not his to waste on his intellectual vanity and ongoing sophistries and specious logics and false claims of what guidelines demand. They do not; even not taking into account the Fifth Pillar ("there are no rules").
He is not a cop, he is not a judge, and not a historian of BC, and doesn't know the material but sure as hell is being vicious about being demanding about it. This topic remains controversial in modern BC; it's a POV minefield and all sides of the story must be present, not just those of the modern-era "historians" bent on criticizing 'white' history in

BC and playing up the "victim" role for the Chinese; there's a lot of positive stuff about Chinese history in BC his sources don't even cover, probably don't even know or care about; this has taken up too much of my recent days, and the ANI plus this farce of an OR board onslaught is completely out of line; AGF is a central principle of wiki-etiquette; his behaviour is the opposite of that, unrelentingly and has always been an NPA campaign against me; mediation....mediation huh? How is that possible when he continues writing and posting his diatribes against me and his endless impatient demands?

Tell him to back off and behave like a civilized person and realize that he doesn't own Wikipedia, he doesn't pay for my time or the time of those I've written to get those page cites, and he's not behaving according to guidelines. Baiting me through ongoing condescension and patronizing sophistries like the most recent above is a fun game for him, no doubt; he's certainly avid about it and STILL hasn't looked at ANY of the mass of cites/sources I compiled for the article. If he's able to spend all day slamming me about page-cites, he has the resources to be able to order the books; they're available online; he says he can't get interlibrary loan and why is that?. Even as a non-student I can do tht from a Canadian public library or university library, for that matter. If it matters so much to him let him read the book for himself instead of being such a @#%@#%# about what it says that he just doesn't want to admit belongs in the article; it does, I've read the book, he hasn't. That's not original research, that's a statement of fact.Skookum1 (talk) 18:05, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

@AndyTheGrump: Sorry to steal you from some other threads, but I notice you often comment on sourcing and reliability.

If someone had read a book before, but sold it awhile ago and now doesn't have it and has no way of accessing it (and has not taken any photographs of the pages - in other words he/she does not know what content is on what page), is it okay for that person to then just remember what he/she had read and then cite the book without page numbers?
If there is a content dispute or an article scope dispute, do you feel that it should come down to the texts in the sources (what the reliable sources say)? Or should it come down to personal knowledge/experiences?
Would you say WP:V requires exact page cites when you are dealing with large books?

WhisperToMe (talk) 19:56, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Morton's not a large book. But you're even demanding page cites for local histories, and @AndyTheGrump:, WMT is constantly trying to recruit support for his OR-type arguments about what WP:V means; he very pointedly didn't add "in talkpage discussions" about this little page-cite obsession/demandingness of his; where I just mention what's in sources he hasn't read and he "goes off" about page-cites and, to me, the reason is a POV and decidedly OWN agenda about "what he doesn't want in the article", which are events and stories that don't "fit" his own personal wiki-wide agenda of "ethnicity-by-city" articles on the one hand, and which confound the many gaffes and biased generalizations in his preferred type of post-modern academic references; he wants to keep material disputing what they say out of "his" articles.
I've tried to raise issues and information relevant to the article, and instead of listening and looking them up or acting in good faith towards me, he launches procedural warfare against me here (more than once); in the POV-fork situation re Indo-Canadians in British Columbia vs Indo-Canadians in Greater Vancouver, he uses OR arguments based on his selection of sources to assert that there is some kind of separation between the province-wide context and the "ethnicity-by-city" agenda of the latter; have a look at the merge discussion he stymied by I don't know how many thousands of words; yet there is necessary overlap between the two; on the BC one he mentions three current MPs being in the House of Commons but doesn't name them, which I added last night; gee, they're all in "Greater Vancouver", how about that? Those need merging, but the other merge discussion was derailed by his voluminous OR/SYNTH arguments to the point where even the RfCs he recruited to try and find support against my COMMONSENSE couldn't figure out what was going on because of the massive tirades and cite-walls he spends massive amounts of energy on while not even trying to find the sources I mention and continues an ongoing procedural war against me here, and now at ANI.
WP:BLUDGEONing discussions, which he is doing here also, he spends more time on than working on the articles or treating another editor with expertise in the topic area with good faith as to what he raises as issues and sources. His arguments that WP:V apply to talkpage comments and in fact to more than quoted passages, which is all WP:V calls for re page-cites, not book-titles for non-quotes, which it does not. WP:V calls for page-cites only on quoted material that might be challenged; he challenges anything I say, would probably ask for a page-cite for a comment about the weather, in fact; that's not Good Faith, that's picayune info-war in defence of his castle; there are things he just doesn't want to know, it seems, and has threatened to delete things that don't have page-cites; by that he must mean my talkpage descriptions of events and sources that are not yet in "his" articles; which means he's talking about deleting my talkpage posts; and any even most general mention of some issue he rewords and conflates and challenges, as per Hunter Jack, a St'at'imc chief who drove off Chiense (and Italians) from his own personal gold-domain in the Bridge River Country in teh 1870s; he's demanding a page-cite for a non-quote; there are four sources about that (I didn't name them all) and possibly more; but he turns around and demands citations that "First Nations had policies about the Chinese", without getting it that Hunter Jack was a one-man policy.
He also demands page-cites NOW and gets all heated about it, including bringing this here and going on about it for days and days and days, and researches people who have a history of AGF/NPA towards me to seek support; while ignoring advice from @Themightyquill: that while my "tone" is not sufficiently passive, the points I raise I'm generally right about and should be listened to. Instead he continues this tirade about page-cites to the point of it constituting harassing me, and claims his reading of WP:V is "policy" (not a guideline); @Callanec: I've been pondering pinging you as the latest phase of several weeks of NPA/AGF towards me by this user has now turned an attempt to Moonriddengirl to try and mediate or arrange mediation into an anti-Skookum1 slagfast at ANI, even going so far as to research others who have made NPA campaigns against me (and lost). This discussion-warring is all too reminiscent of the protracted problem re WP:NCL where you stepped in; his behaviour is not improving the encylopaedia in the slightest; his writing is awful, quite frankly, and pointillistically masses of bits of TRIVIA and UNDUE he finds to throw onto the pages bolster his very narrow-minded POV and ongoing SYNTH/OR arguments/agenda. The page-cite demands and false claims about what WP:V are hostile and contrarian and completely, completely, completely AGF, his behaviour utterly WP:OWN and his chosen content/sources POV. Yet he's an admin, for all of his constantly violating guidelines himself, and behaves as though that makes him a boss or some kind of authority empowered to reinterpret and extrapolate guidelines to suit himself, as here with WP:V. While advancing his own arguments as if factual and not ideologically selected and driven, he claims that me saying t hat I'm from BC and know of more events and sources that he should read is 'original research' (that was the focus of his last attack on me in another discussion here a month or so ago).
Informed expertise and local input is a norm in Wikipedia and always has been; he maintains me saying "I'm from BC and know what I'm talking about" is "original research"; he himself has never been there, and can't even get the geography right, much less realize when one of his preferred sources is wrong about somethign, which they often are. He is presuming to editorial authority on a very important aspect of BC history and society that has many difficult angles that needs discretion and informed input to winnow through the mass of academic diatribes and media distortions to make sure the article is NPOV and fair. he's interested in neither, only in shaming me and demanding page-cites for things that don't require them. Moonriddengirl calls our relationship/interaction "battlefield behaviour" = but he's the one conducting the battle and not putting down his weapons. Instead he goes trying to recruit others to assist him in attacking me.....Skookum1 (talk) 23:12, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
I have no intention whatsoever of wading through that wall of text. Please don't ping me again. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:19, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
He pinged you first, I just broke up my just-now post with paragraphs for readability; his walls of text have been going on for weeks here and on various other talkpges and discussion boards. Deluging discussion with lengthy OR arguments is par for the course for his behaviour, so it's ironic if that comment is only directed at me.Skookum1 (talk) 23:41, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
Morton has 280 pages. Even academic journal articles at, say, 10 or so pages apiece still need page cites, let alone monographs. WhisperToMe (talk) 07:04, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
NOT according to Wikipedia guidelines, ONLY according to you. Give up the SYNTH rationalizations and sophistries about why you claim you're right about extrapolating and instruction creeping guidelines to assert something is required. YOU ARE WRONG and attempting to extend guidelines to justify your bias towards sources that contain things that are in the way of your POV agenda. That is very clear by now, as is your ongoing disruptiveness about persisting in this line of argument, which is all about you, not about Wikipedia guidelines, not relevant to a full and fair approach to BC history (about which you know so little it's shocking given how avidly you have sought to "take charge" of an important subject in my province's history and current society, even though you've never been to the place, and i daresay probably never will), and not collaborative; rather the opposite; you are obstructionist and contrarian; this OR is a farce just like the last one; you will repeat you false claim about guidelines again and again, that is a propaganda technique, it will never make it true. @Callanecc: pinging you again because this has gone on for far too long, the ANI has been turned against me, rather than ended the battlefield behaviour @Moonriddengirl: started in the hopes of mediating; WhisperToMe needs to told in no uncertain terms that (a) WP:V's strictures about page-cites applies only to quotes (b) WP:V in general does not apply to talkpage discussions where all that is being "challenged" is the mere mention of a source and what's in it; which he wants to delete - to redact my posts/points, which is against guidelines - and (c) there is no such "requirement" for "articles at, say, 10 or so pages apiece still need page cites, let alone monographs" (d) "there are no rules" i.e. the Fifth Pillar is something that needs to be respected. As do I. Six-seven-eight weeks of thinly-disguised NPA about my untrustworthiness and ongoing AGF towards anythign I say is enough. WMT is apparently an admin and should not be.Skookum1 (talk) 14:07, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
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