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Perhaps of relevance: One of the original authors has written about the GBD and the courts: The Government Censored Me and Other Scientists. We Fought Back—and Won. | The Free Press (thefp.com) 2600:6C67:1C00:5F7E:C94F:538E:ED1A:5365 ( talk) 19:22, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
- Bit cringe, considering the circumstances, but OK.
Polygnotus (
talk) 22:42, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
- Service: [1]
- As a source for the article, not OK. It's just a pseudoscientist putting his spin on his own story. "Wah, wah, we are being suppressed"? The GBD was everywhere, and still is. Suppression is something else. Get a better source if you want this. --
Hob Gadling (
talk) 07:14, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- The Free Press has an AllSides media bias rating of center.
https://www.allsides.com/news-source/the-free-press-media-bias. As for calling someone a "pseudo-scientist" a "pseudo-intellectual" might find that appropriate language, I do not.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 18:51, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
- You're replying to a nearly six-month-old conversation, but lest it go unsaid: there are a number of problems with this. First, I don't know why we should particularly care what "allsides.com" says about a site. Second, if we did, the rating is of "low or initial confidence." Third, a website being "center-leaning" does not have any relevance to whether it's a reliable source or not, and
previous discussion on Wikipedia certainly leans towards "unreliable". But fourth and most importantly, what one of the authors of the GBD has to say about the thing they authored is *never* going to be a reliable source for anything like the claims in the article, because it is inherently going to be a non-independent source. TL;DR:
Mandy Rice-Davies applies.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 20:29, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
- First, the opinion that Wikipedia has of a source is irrelevant to the content that source is relating in any particular instance of reporting. In this case, there are important links to primary documents one of which follows. For example,
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca5.214640/gov.uscourts.ca5.214640.238.1.pdf#p=23 is the court judgement that the government's opinion, which agrees with the opinion in this Wikipedia article, is incorrect. That this is not often reported fits with the mission statement of The Free Press (thefp.com), which is to relate otherwise ignored and/or censored news. That this provokes a negative opinion from Wikipedia's Editors is not germane and not relevant, some facts are just hard to accept for those with inflexible preconceptions. Hiding behind opinions about opinion makers rather than dealing with the facts at hand is just so much smoke.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 20:59, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
- You are confused. This is a Wikipedia article Talk page, and its goal is to improve the article. The article can only be improved with reliable sources, and the reliability of a source may be
irrelevant
to you but it is the only relevant thing for this page. If you have nothing useful to contribute, then you have no business here. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 21:16, 24 March 2024 (UTC)- The link I provided from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States District Court is a valid source. The content includes sanctions against the defendants Joseph R. Biden, Jr.; Vivek H. Murthy; Xavier Becerra; Department of Health & Human Services; Anthony Fauci; Et al., for conduct that aligns with the specific text, and methods of censure used on this website in this specific article. That injunction appears to apply to the text herein. What about that information do you consider "irrelevant?" You cannot hid behind a smoke screen and claim irrelevant process on this one, this is a legal decision which you ignore only by incurring unnecessary risk. Please consider this as a cease and desist. This article should either be drastically altered or deleted entirely.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 23:59, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia doesn't use court documents as sources, so it is not a 'valid source', no. Any in any case nothing determined by that ruling would have any effect on Wikipedia's article whatsoever. Courts don't get to decide science.
MrOllie (
talk) 00:11, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- Although the link is deprecated, primary sources on Wikipedia have been known to include "historical documents such as a diary, census, video or transcript of surveillance, a public hearing, trial, (sic, bold font is mine) or interviews"
/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Use_of_primary_sources_in_Wikipedia#Types_of_primary_sources. Your claim is that courts do not get to decide science. But, rightly or wrongly they do, see
/info/en/?search=Clarence_Darrow#Scopes_Trial Moreover, they have the force of law, and Scopes was fined $100, and the conviction was overturned on a technicality. As shown by the Scopes trial, the law, and your risks under it, are not related to your opinion of jurisprudence, where jurisprudence is the philosophy or science of law. For example, many jurisdictions would consider drunk driving punishable regardless of your opinion about drunk driving. Finally, this article does not follow science at all. Science is predicated upon the falsification of a falsifiable hypothesis, AKA test of hypothesis. This article does not entertain the proposition that the GBD is a hypothesis to be tested; rather this article presumes the GBD to be false and then seeks to demonstrate that it is false, which is called 'proving that an assumption was made,' i.e., very unscientific, and as above, unlawfully so.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 19:29, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- Your concerns are noted, but there are no
risks under it
to speak of, and vague legal threats will not get this article changed. MrOllie ( talk) 19:40, 26 March 2024 (UTC)- Incorrect, this article has changed considerably, but still either has a long way to go to become rational, or should be deleted entirely to prevent further harm to Wikipedia's reputation and its readers. No vague legal threat intended, if I strongly suggest that you do not drive (or write) drunk, consider me to be your friend with the car keys, not your enemy. 216.197.221.61 ( talk) 20:12, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think nothing about the GBD or any scientific controversy was adjudicated by the court.
- The court case alleges various government actors improperly censored content on various online platforms (by intimidating the companies), violating the complainants' speech rights. Here is one news source for this judgement: Times of India. The district and appellate courts found in the complainants favor.
- So what is the proposed modification to this article? Perhaps we could include a paragraph describing the court case. I think it might fit in the Reception section.
- Regarding some specific complaints by the IP editor:
conduct that aligns with the specific text, and methods of censure used on this website in this specific article
amounts to a claim that the government has threatened and intimidated Wikipedia into removing content.court judgement that the government's opinion, which agrees with the opinion in this Wikipedia article, is incorrect
amounts to a claim that the court has affirmed the GBD authors were right and the reliable sources describing the GBD and its place in the pandemic were wrong. The court did no such thing.
- There is nothing we can do in response to these two complaints, as there is nothing to support them. --
- -- M.boli ( talk) 20:14, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- Your concerns are noted, but there are no
- Although the link is deprecated, primary sources on Wikipedia have been known to include "historical documents such as a diary, census, video or transcript of surveillance, a public hearing, trial, (sic, bold font is mine) or interviews"
/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Use_of_primary_sources_in_Wikipedia#Types_of_primary_sources. Your claim is that courts do not get to decide science. But, rightly or wrongly they do, see
/info/en/?search=Clarence_Darrow#Scopes_Trial Moreover, they have the force of law, and Scopes was fined $100, and the conviction was overturned on a technicality. As shown by the Scopes trial, the law, and your risks under it, are not related to your opinion of jurisprudence, where jurisprudence is the philosophy or science of law. For example, many jurisdictions would consider drunk driving punishable regardless of your opinion about drunk driving. Finally, this article does not follow science at all. Science is predicated upon the falsification of a falsifiable hypothesis, AKA test of hypothesis. This article does not entertain the proposition that the GBD is a hypothesis to be tested; rather this article presumes the GBD to be false and then seeks to demonstrate that it is false, which is called 'proving that an assumption was made,' i.e., very unscientific, and as above, unlawfully so.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 19:29, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia doesn't use court documents as sources, so it is not a 'valid source', no. Any in any case nothing determined by that ruling would have any effect on Wikipedia's article whatsoever. Courts don't get to decide science.
MrOllie (
talk) 00:11, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- The link I provided from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States District Court is a valid source. The content includes sanctions against the defendants Joseph R. Biden, Jr.; Vivek H. Murthy; Xavier Becerra; Department of Health & Human Services; Anthony Fauci; Et al., for conduct that aligns with the specific text, and methods of censure used on this website in this specific article. That injunction appears to apply to the text herein. What about that information do you consider "irrelevant?" You cannot hid behind a smoke screen and claim irrelevant process on this one, this is a legal decision which you ignore only by incurring unnecessary risk. Please consider this as a cease and desist. This article should either be drastically altered or deleted entirely.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 23:59, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
- You are confused. This is a Wikipedia article Talk page, and its goal is to improve the article. The article can only be improved with reliable sources, and the reliability of a source may be
- First, the opinion that Wikipedia has of a source is irrelevant to the content that source is relating in any particular instance of reporting. In this case, there are important links to primary documents one of which follows. For example,
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca5.214640/gov.uscourts.ca5.214640.238.1.pdf#p=23 is the court judgement that the government's opinion, which agrees with the opinion in this Wikipedia article, is incorrect. That this is not often reported fits with the mission statement of The Free Press (thefp.com), which is to relate otherwise ignored and/or censored news. That this provokes a negative opinion from Wikipedia's Editors is not germane and not relevant, some facts are just hard to accept for those with inflexible preconceptions. Hiding behind opinions about opinion makers rather than dealing with the facts at hand is just so much smoke.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 20:59, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
- You're replying to a nearly six-month-old conversation, but lest it go unsaid: there are a number of problems with this. First, I don't know why we should particularly care what "allsides.com" says about a site. Second, if we did, the rating is of "low or initial confidence." Third, a website being "center-leaning" does not have any relevance to whether it's a reliable source or not, and
previous discussion on Wikipedia certainly leans towards "unreliable". But fourth and most importantly, what one of the authors of the GBD has to say about the thing they authored is *never* going to be a reliable source for anything like the claims in the article, because it is inherently going to be a non-independent source. TL;DR:
Mandy Rice-Davies applies.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 20:29, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
- The Free Press has an AllSides media bias rating of center.
https://www.allsides.com/news-source/the-free-press-media-bias. As for calling someone a "pseudo-scientist" a "pseudo-intellectual" might find that appropriate language, I do not.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 18:51, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
- Scopes? Just because idiot politicians make idiot anti-science laws courts have to enforce, neither facts nor science will change, and Wikipedia will not pretend it does. --
Hob Gadling (
talk) 09:32, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
- There is no evidence of science in this article. All we are offered are secondary or tertiary opinions which amount to gibberish. I frankly don't care about what the editors hold as 'science' whilst they quote off-the-cuff rehashed journalistic opinion from the extreme left. Science relates data and draws opinions from significant findings that arise from it. Where is the data to support any of the opinions in this article?
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 05:39, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
- If you think that any reliable sources used in the article are not reliable, name them and give your reasoning. Pro tip: Claims that the sources are "extreme left" need to be relative to experts, not relative to your own position. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 06:35, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
- There is no evidence of science in this article. All we are offered are secondary or tertiary opinions which amount to gibberish. I frankly don't care about what the editors hold as 'science' whilst they quote off-the-cuff rehashed journalistic opinion from the extreme left. Science relates data and draws opinions from significant findings that arise from it. Where is the data to support any of the opinions in this article?
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 05:39, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
- Scopes? Just because idiot politicians make idiot anti-science laws courts have to enforce, neither facts nor science will change, and Wikipedia will not pretend it does. --
Hob Gadling (
talk) 09:32, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This article starts off with "...lockdowns could be avoided via the fringe notion of "focused protection"..." Many epidemiologists would not consider focused protection to be a 'fringe notion.' What it is not a neutral point of view. Then, we are treated to somebody being financed by somebody else who supports 'climate change denial.' Linking the opinion of a trio of epidemiologists to opinions about climate change is a far fetched conspiracy theory. Frankly, if a communist government financed by medical education, that would not make me a communist. (In my case, it had the opposite effect.) Ask the authors of the GBD if you actually want to know, but presenting circumstantial evidence of such tenuous type gives not only the impression of bias but the type of bias that would make for Great Satire like https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-touts-productive-climate-change-meeting-with-french-leader-napoleon-bonaparte Such would not be admissible as evidence for Allsides or other legitimate fact checking source. What it does do is confirm for the reader just how rediculous this article is. I could go on and on, but I'll cut it short by saying that anyone who is centrist would discard this article as pathetically biased. 2607:FEA8:D661:6700:2813:2E15:9BC1:DF0 ( talk) 02:40, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
- On Wikipedia,
WP:NPOV means that we follow the POV of mainstream reliable sources. It does not mean
false balance.
MrOllie (
talk) 03:04, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
- Name one "balanced" source for this article.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:2D67:650:9DE6:8B8F (
talk) 14:58, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- False balance is about how WE present sources, sources themselves to not have to be balanced.
Slatersteven (
talk) 15:04, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- I agree, but disallowing balanced mainstream media by projecting animus has lead to inappropriate animus in this article; the arguments are flawed, weak and unconvincing and it needs cleanup, for example, guilt by association is suspect, and climate change has no relationship to the GBD, just like Stalin's daughter was not a mass murderer. Another example, the John Snow Memorandum, read it yourself, is a tainted opinion piece, not a scientific report
https://www.johnsnowmemo.com/john-snow-memo.html Moreover, the journal in which it was published, The Lancet, has a disturbing tendency for animus against individual researchers, and is very unscientific at times. This Wikipedia article is unconvincing, it needs work.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:2D67:650:9DE6:8B8F (
talk) 17:19, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- What balanced mainstream media have we forbidden?
Slatersteven (
talk) 17:21, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- Many, and when I have cited them, they have been promptly deleted.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 20:59, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- This is your only edit, perhaps it would be easier for you to give some exampleS. Slatersteven ( talk) 21:17, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- Many, and when I have cited them, they have been promptly deleted.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 20:59, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- See
WP:5P2 "Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong on Wikipedia." You need to point actual relevant citations for what you want to say rather than go on about climate change and animus in the Lancet.
NadVolum (
talk) 21:22, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- When I have provided relevant citations, they have been deleted using one excuse or another. Look, as it stands now this article is frankly rediculous. I could help you but it is nearly impossible to do so when the citations are removed because of editorial zeal for a particular narrative to the exclusion of others. Here is one such "Citation impact and social media visibility of Great Barrington and John Snow signatories for COVID-19 strategy"
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/12/2/e052891.full.pdf?with-ds=yes Furthermore, as the fact checkers from the left were all over this the author(s) had to defend themselves. I have a great deal of respect for BMJ, and have published in it myself.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 21:18, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- If citations are removed, it is because they do not meet basic sourcing standards as given in
WP:RS,
WP:MEDRS and
WP:FRIND. Your link there is a good example of something that doesn't meet FRIND. It is quite far from the 'balanced mainstream media' you were suggesting we were missing.
MrOllie (
talk) 21:32, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- You are paying attention to who says something and disregarding what is being said. The article cited is unbiased and not WP:FRIND.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 21:46, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- "Paying attention to who says something" is the very cornerstone of
reliable sourcing,
verifiability, and Wikipedia itself.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 22:29, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- Suppose that if persons A and B say the same thing, and A is someone you like, but B is not, you then conclude that what A said was true, and what B said is false, even though they agree. That is nonsense. True enough, it is who you know and not what you know that gets you privilege, but that is corrupt. Seek truth, not tribalism. This is the second time just such a fallacy was exposed in this talk page. Above, in the House of Representatives Covid hearing section, two sources cited the same video, one was considered "bad", and the other "good" but were otherwise identical. Look at content to determine truth, not reputation. Reputation, is an ad hominem
/info/en/?search=Ad_hominem argument, widely recognized as illogical, here on Wikipedia as elsewhere.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 16:26, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- You are welcome to think that Wikipedia's content policies are nonsense, but we're still going to follow them.
MrOllie (
talk) 16:28, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia's policies are not nonsense, but using them to present falsehoods as truth is. Clearly this is a matter of interpretation.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 16:48, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- If falsehoods and truth are a matter of interpretation, then we prefer the reliable sources' interpretation to yours because of Wikipedia's policies. Can we stop this? -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 07:05, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia's policies are not nonsense, but using them to present falsehoods as truth is. Clearly this is a matter of interpretation.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 16:48, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- You are welcome to think that Wikipedia's content policies are nonsense, but we're still going to follow them.
MrOllie (
talk) 16:28, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- Suppose that if persons A and B say the same thing, and A is someone you like, but B is not, you then conclude that what A said was true, and what B said is false, even though they agree. That is nonsense. True enough, it is who you know and not what you know that gets you privilege, but that is corrupt. Seek truth, not tribalism. This is the second time just such a fallacy was exposed in this talk page. Above, in the House of Representatives Covid hearing section, two sources cited the same video, one was considered "bad", and the other "good" but were otherwise identical. Look at content to determine truth, not reputation. Reputation, is an ad hominem
/info/en/?search=Ad_hominem argument, widely recognized as illogical, here on Wikipedia as elsewhere.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 16:26, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- "Paying attention to who says something" is the very cornerstone of
reliable sourcing,
verifiability, and Wikipedia itself.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 22:29, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- You are paying attention to who says something and disregarding what is being said. The article cited is unbiased and not WP:FRIND.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 21:46, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- The evidence that the GBD is not-fringe is: a roundly debunked paper by
John Ioannidis (a formerly respected researcher who devolved into COVID crank-titute) utilizing the
Kardashian Index (a joke -- literally a joke). It doesn't get any funnier than this. --
M.boli (
talk) 21:44, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- Sarcasm is hardly proof of concept. There is a difference between claiming bias from a biased POV, and reputations from a biased POV and evidence of what is in the scientific literature. Research in a peer reviewed journal is more important for Wikipedians that a post on social media containing no analysis whatsoever in a comical presentation. Stop ignoring the facts just to protect your POV, please.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 21:52, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- John Ioannidis's most famous paper already had him tending towards attention seeking. What the title said was badly wrong. The paper did show that better standards were needed and it probably would not have had as much influence that way if it had been written without the hype, so there's a good argument for the hype. But that was not scientific.
NadVolum (
talk) 00:27, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- Please explain why John Ioannidis's reputation has anything to do with the context here. In specific, what publication are you referring to, and what does his personality have to do with anything?
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 16:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- I see that John Ioannidis is the author of what I cited. I frankly don't care who he is. I do care what he said in that paper, "Both GBD and JSM include many stellar scientists, but JSM has far more powerful social media presence and this may have shaped the impression that it is the dominant narrative." I see nothing wrong with that particular opinion. With respect to some of his other opinions, I do not always agree, for example I do not agree with his sweeping statements about the use of statistics in medicine. Samuel Clemens said that "There are liars, dammed liars, and statisticians" and any set of rules can be abused. However, this most often, in my experience, boils down to which assumptions are made, for example, if we assume that "climate change is bad" and prove that we have assumed that "climate change is bad," then we have proved nothing. In those cases it really doesn't matter what statistics we have used. If, on the other hand, we assume that "climate change is good" and we show that is wrong then we have said something that is at least not self-referential. Pay attention to trying for a less self-referential article if you wish to write something convincing. As it stands now, there is too much hand waving to convince anyone of anything in this article.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 17:56, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- Fortunately, we are not attempting to convince anyone of anything with this article, or any other article on Wikipedia. Rather, we are trying to summarize what reliable sources say about a topic. The paper you've linked is already discussed in the article, so you'll need more than that one link to demonstrate that the preponderance of reliable sources support your preferred opinion about the GBD.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 19:53, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- Very funny. I could provide many links, but the preponderance of bias in this article would not change appreciably, and no, this is not applicable to the preponderance of articles on Wikipedia. It only applies to current politics, not to statistics, math, physics, chemistry and indeed most topics. Consider please that when the bias is so thick that logic has been forsaken, all I can do is to implore you to think more carefully so as not to write text that is self-contradictory. 2607:FEA8:D661:6700:5168:D308:E5FD:ACB4 ( talk) 06:09, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- Fortunately, we are not attempting to convince anyone of anything with this article, or any other article on Wikipedia. Rather, we are trying to summarize what reliable sources say about a topic. The paper you've linked is already discussed in the article, so you'll need more than that one link to demonstrate that the preponderance of reliable sources support your preferred opinion about the GBD.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 19:53, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- I see that John Ioannidis is the author of what I cited. I frankly don't care who he is. I do care what he said in that paper, "Both GBD and JSM include many stellar scientists, but JSM has far more powerful social media presence and this may have shaped the impression that it is the dominant narrative." I see nothing wrong with that particular opinion. With respect to some of his other opinions, I do not always agree, for example I do not agree with his sweeping statements about the use of statistics in medicine. Samuel Clemens said that "There are liars, dammed liars, and statisticians" and any set of rules can be abused. However, this most often, in my experience, boils down to which assumptions are made, for example, if we assume that "climate change is bad" and prove that we have assumed that "climate change is bad," then we have proved nothing. In those cases it really doesn't matter what statistics we have used. If, on the other hand, we assume that "climate change is good" and we show that is wrong then we have said something that is at least not self-referential. Pay attention to trying for a less self-referential article if you wish to write something convincing. As it stands now, there is too much hand waving to convince anyone of anything in this article.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 17:56, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- Please explain why John Ioannidis's reputation has anything to do with the context here. In specific, what publication are you referring to, and what does his personality have to do with anything?
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 16:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- John Ioannidis's most famous paper already had him tending towards attention seeking. What the title said was badly wrong. The paper did show that better standards were needed and it probably would not have had as much influence that way if it had been written without the hype, so there's a good argument for the hype. But that was not scientific.
NadVolum (
talk) 00:27, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- Sarcasm is hardly proof of concept. There is a difference between claiming bias from a biased POV, and reputations from a biased POV and evidence of what is in the scientific literature. Research in a peer reviewed journal is more important for Wikipedians that a post on social media containing no analysis whatsoever in a comical presentation. Stop ignoring the facts just to protect your POV, please.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 21:52, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- If citations are removed, it is because they do not meet basic sourcing standards as given in
WP:RS,
WP:MEDRS and
WP:FRIND. Your link there is a good example of something that doesn't meet FRIND. It is quite far from the 'balanced mainstream media' you were suggesting we were missing.
MrOllie (
talk) 21:32, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- When I have provided relevant citations, they have been deleted using one excuse or another. Look, as it stands now this article is frankly rediculous. I could help you but it is nearly impossible to do so when the citations are removed because of editorial zeal for a particular narrative to the exclusion of others. Here is one such "Citation impact and social media visibility of Great Barrington and John Snow signatories for COVID-19 strategy"
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/12/2/e052891.full.pdf?with-ds=yes Furthermore, as the fact checkers from the left were all over this the author(s) had to defend themselves. I have a great deal of respect for BMJ, and have published in it myself.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 21:18, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- What balanced mainstream media have we forbidden?
Slatersteven (
talk) 17:21, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- I agree, but disallowing balanced mainstream media by projecting animus has lead to inappropriate animus in this article; the arguments are flawed, weak and unconvincing and it needs cleanup, for example, guilt by association is suspect, and climate change has no relationship to the GBD, just like Stalin's daughter was not a mass murderer. Another example, the John Snow Memorandum, read it yourself, is a tainted opinion piece, not a scientific report
https://www.johnsnowmemo.com/john-snow-memo.html Moreover, the journal in which it was published, The Lancet, has a disturbing tendency for animus against individual researchers, and is very unscientific at times. This Wikipedia article is unconvincing, it needs work.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:2D67:650:9DE6:8B8F (
talk) 17:19, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- False balance is about how WE present sources, sources themselves to not have to be balanced.
Slatersteven (
talk) 15:04, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- Name one "balanced" source for this article.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:2D67:650:9DE6:8B8F (
talk) 14:58, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Jonathan Howard on
Science-Based Medicine: While “not vulnerable” people lived in a world of pure COVID, “vulnerable” people would be locked down in a world of zero COVID. The only tasks were identifying “vulnerable” and “not vulnerable” people and creating an impenetrable wall between them.
[2] --
Hob Gadling (
talk) 15:24, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
- This is the crux of why the idea is BS; perhaps this needs to be brought out more? Bon courage ( talk) 17:25, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
- There was so many other things wrong with what they said! They knew it was a major killer, you'd want to slow it down generally so the hospitals wouldn't get broken and there is always the hope of better treatments being found with a delay even if one has no hope for a vaccine. There was no good reason to try make it worse than the 1918 flu. NadVolum ( talk) 18:42, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
Please see WP:NOTAFORUM. 31.52.163.164 ( talk) 20:53, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
In the section regarding critical commentaries about the GBD, there is a dropbox containing a link to a video of Matt Hancock, a British government minister during the COVID-19 lockdowns, discussing the GBD. The text discusses the British government response to the GBD, in particular referring to Matt Hancock, in the first few paragraphs of the section. Yet the video of Matt Hancock speaking is placed several paragraphs later, at which point the article has moved on to discuss the response in other countries. I think the link to the Matt Hancock video should be moved within the text so that it is shown immediately next to the paragraphs discussing the British government reactions to the GBD. Cowingzitron ( talk) 01:19, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
The notion of focused protection was essentially Swedish national policy throughout the pandemic. Is this compatible with being a "fringe notion"? –— St.Nerol ( talk, contribs) 13:40, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- In a word: yes.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 13:45, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Yes indeed. There are a lot of myths about Sweden.
[3]
Bon courage (
talk) 13:46, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Spare me talk about "myths". I'm Swedish, and I know what restrictions we had. They were quite compatible with the declaration.Schools and universities should be open: Elementary schools were open, high schools and universities periodically and partially closed. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed: Activities for youth were prioritized and mostly open. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home: People were generally allowed to work on-site. Restaurants and other businesses should open: They were, although suffering from various restrictions. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume: Cinemas, churches, etc. were open, but with varying restrictions on the number of people who could gather at the same time. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 14:12, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Reliable sources call it fringe, and so we do too. Your personal experiences are interesting, but not useful for this article as original research. And regardless, a single country's government subscribing to a particular scientific position doesn't make it non-fringe; as an example, South Africa or the US and HIV/AIDS denialism. This has been discussed extensively in previous talk page discussions; feel free to review those discussions for the rationales, and if you have a significant quantity of reliable sources that describe focused protection as non-fringe, feel free to present them. Writ Keeper ⚇ ♔ 14:17, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- And was COVID encouraged to 'sweep through' the population resulting in herd immunity in a few weeks? We have excellent sources for this being bullshit. If you have counter-sources, produce them. Your personal takes are of no use for writing the article.
Bon courage (
talk) 14:18, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- And where is any mention about "herd immunity in a few weeks"? The official Swedish regulations and recommendations at different stages of the pandemic are not classified. What might or might not exist is an explicit published comparison to the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD). In any case, the similarities, together with the fact that Sweden is doing rather well in retrospective comparative evaluations of pandemic policy, could at least indicate some POV problems here. The sources calling it "fringe" seem to be mainly from late 2020. My impression is that this article is not very up-to-date. –—
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 15:08, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Again, feel free to present reliable sources to the contrary. Without such sources, this article is as up-to-date as it needs to be. Writ Keeper ⚇ ♔ 15:10, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Here's an excellent update we could usefully draw on.
[4]
Bon courage (
talk) 15:11, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- The above piece from David Gorski seems rather informal and combative. Here's
a comparison between GBD and a paper by Donald Henderson, who led the eradication of smallpox. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 15:35, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Err, WP:SBM is an excellent source for fringe science. You seemed to link to something by a contrarian business journalist? Bon courage ( talk) 15:42, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Moreover, a contrarian business journalist writing for a
questionable-at-best publication. I don't see any mention of the GBD in the portion of the article I have access to, though I suppose it's not the whole thing. Regardless, that's not going to fly.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 15:47, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- The comparison with the policies argued in
the paper by Henderson seems correct. I can hardly believe that Henderson was a fringe epidemiologist in 2006. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 15:55, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Since Henderson died in 2016, it seems a bit fringey to invoke him in relation to a virus which didn't exist until 3 years later. Bon courage ( talk) 15:57, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- According to your own article, Henderson died in 2016, three years before COVID-19 even existed. Without an actually reliable source (not just one that "seems correct" according to you), he is entirely irrelevant to this article. See also
WP:SYNTH.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 15:58, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- This reasoning is backwards. Since Henderson wrote things with apparent relevance to subsequent events (as anyone can see), hopefully there are or will be reliable sources to this effect. I'm sorry that you regard the level-headed piece on Henderson as appearing in a "questionable-at-best publication". I guess time will tell. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 16:22, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Time has told. GBD was always a fringe idea and has settled into becoming the province of cranks, contrarians and grifters. Bon courage ( talk) 16:33, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
hopefully there are or will be reliable sources to this effect
: if and when there are, you can link them, and we can discuss the potential relevance of this whole line of reasoning to the article. Not before then. The burden of proof is on you to provide these sources; until you've done so, there's nothing really to discuss. Writ Keeper ⚇ ♔ 17:14, 19 March 2024 (UTC)- I reserve the right to start a discussion without having an array of sources in my back pocket to prove a predetermined point. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 18:22, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Sure, but without those sources, such a talk page discussion will never lead to changes in the article.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 18:28, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- And therefore,
WP:NOTFORUM applies. --
Hob Gadling (
talk) 19:39, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, nice pile. What it communicates: Never raised a percieved issue, based on limited knowledge, without an absolutely watertight case. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 22:41, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- This is a WP:CTOP (you have now been alerted) and Talk pages should be used to improve the article, not for general discussion. If somebody has an actual proposal (with source) please make it. But Wikipedia has a duty to call out fringe notions for what they (according to quality sources) are. So that won't be changing unless the sourcing changes. Bon courage ( talk) 04:38, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, nice pile. What it communicates: Never raised a percieved issue, based on limited knowledge, without an absolutely watertight case. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 22:41, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- And therefore,
WP:NOTFORUM applies. --
Hob Gadling (
talk) 19:39, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Sure, but without those sources, such a talk page discussion will never lead to changes in the article.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 18:28, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- I reserve the right to start a discussion without having an array of sources in my back pocket to prove a predetermined point. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 18:22, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- This reasoning is backwards. Since Henderson wrote things with apparent relevance to subsequent events (as anyone can see), hopefully there are or will be reliable sources to this effect. I'm sorry that you regard the level-headed piece on Henderson as appearing in a "questionable-at-best publication". I guess time will tell. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 16:22, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- The comparison with the policies argued in
the paper by Henderson seems correct. I can hardly believe that Henderson was a fringe epidemiologist in 2006. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 15:55, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- The above piece from David Gorski seems rather informal and combative. Here's
a comparison between GBD and a paper by Donald Henderson, who led the eradication of smallpox. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 15:35, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding Sweden: what horse manure. First, how Swedish authorities handled the epidemic in the first 3/4 year was winging it, there is no tie-in to a strategy called "focused protection." Second, by the end of 2020 the mortality and morbidity rates were higher than in similarly situated countries and the health system was overwhelmed. The authorities then adopted many of the same measures as in other countries, including much more masking and vaccination requirements. I'm always amused when commenters show and start throwing the word "Sweden" around as if it meant something. -- M.boli ( talk) 13:06, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- And where is any mention about "herd immunity in a few weeks"? The official Swedish regulations and recommendations at different stages of the pandemic are not classified. What might or might not exist is an explicit published comparison to the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD). In any case, the similarities, together with the fact that Sweden is doing rather well in retrospective comparative evaluations of pandemic policy, could at least indicate some POV problems here. The sources calling it "fringe" seem to be mainly from late 2020. My impression is that this article is not very up-to-date. –—
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 15:08, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Spare me talk about "myths". I'm Swedish, and I know what restrictions we had. They were quite compatible with the declaration.Schools and universities should be open: Elementary schools were open, high schools and universities periodically and partially closed. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed: Activities for youth were prioritized and mostly open. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home: People were generally allowed to work on-site. Restaurants and other businesses should open: They were, although suffering from various restrictions. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume: Cinemas, churches, etc. were open, but with varying restrictions on the number of people who could gather at the same time. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 14:12, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Yes indeed. There are a lot of myths about Sweden.
[3]
Bon courage (
talk) 13:46, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- I have mentioned these sources before but they are relevant to your objections and might warrant consideration. Why these articles are not integrated into the article should give editors pause. The statnews sources suggests what you describe here regarding Sweden. I find these articles have more dispassionate commentary.
[5]
[6]
[7].
SmolBrane (
talk) 22:36, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- But think pieces by journalists and students are precisely the kind of rubbish sources that relevant experts have complained about for creating a false balance in the lay discourse (as discussed for example in
PMID:36962077), and of course this is
not something Wikipedia is going to indulge in. GBD isn't going away as it's become part of the standard issue COVID crank toolkit, alongside ivermectin, anti-vaxx, and lab leak. Retrospective pieces (like the SBM one linked above) are useful and in time it's likely scholars will analyze more how GBD fits into the antiscience scene. J Howard's book, We Want Them Infected (which we cite) also offers a useful retrospective.
Bon courage (
talk) 04:12, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- Isn't there a guideline to the effect that secondary, reputable sources often are preferable to primary? Is Stat News well regarded? The author of the piece is a doctoral candidate in History of Science. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 20:41, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- We do not prefer secondary news sources to peer-reviewed articles, no.
MrOllie (
talk) 21:11, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- Here's the policy I was thinking of:
WP:PSTS, Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 09:02, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- The Stat source is a novel opinion piece (primary source) from a student, and lay press is not reliable for
WP:BMI. So double no.
Bon courage (
talk) 09:09, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- To be fair, if "lay press" applies to Stat News, then it would surely also apply to articles by Gorski in the Science-Based Medicine group blog, which is mentioned approvingly above and is cited in the article presently (although not extensively). Do his articles on there receive any kind of editorial review? Probably not. And even if they did, he's an oncologist and surgeon, not an epidemiologist, in the field of public health, or other directly relevant field. So such a source isn't great either. Really, I'd hope to see more focus on peer-reviewed commentary in the scientific press, which there should be more of by now relative to late 2020 when a lot of the material in the article was written.
Crossroads
-talk- 00:40, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
- WP:SBM. Scientific journals rarely engage with fringe ideas, so, specialists for fringe ideas, like Gorski, are unusally the best we can get. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 04:50, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
- To be fair, if "lay press" applies to Stat News, then it would surely also apply to articles by Gorski in the Science-Based Medicine group blog, which is mentioned approvingly above and is cited in the article presently (although not extensively). Do his articles on there receive any kind of editorial review? Probably not. And even if they did, he's an oncologist and surgeon, not an epidemiologist, in the field of public health, or other directly relevant field. So such a source isn't great either. Really, I'd hope to see more focus on peer-reviewed commentary in the scientific press, which there should be more of by now relative to late 2020 when a lot of the material in the article was written.
Crossroads
-talk- 00:40, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
-
WP:NEWSORG says
Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics
. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 09:22, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- The Stat source is a novel opinion piece (primary source) from a student, and lay press is not reliable for
WP:BMI. So double no.
Bon courage (
talk) 09:09, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- Here's the policy I was thinking of:
WP:PSTS, Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 09:02, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- We do not prefer secondary news sources to peer-reviewed articles, no.
MrOllie (
talk) 21:11, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- Isn't there a guideline to the effect that secondary, reputable sources often are preferable to primary? Is Stat News well regarded? The author of the piece is a doctoral candidate in History of Science. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 20:41, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- But think pieces by journalists and students are precisely the kind of rubbish sources that relevant experts have complained about for creating a false balance in the lay discourse (as discussed for example in
PMID:36962077), and of course this is
not something Wikipedia is going to indulge in. GBD isn't going away as it's become part of the standard issue COVID crank toolkit, alongside ivermectin, anti-vaxx, and lab leak. Retrospective pieces (like the SBM one linked above) are useful and in time it's likely scholars will analyze more how GBD fits into the antiscience scene. J Howard's book, We Want Them Infected (which we cite) also offers a useful retrospective.
Bon courage (
talk) 04:12, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- @
St.nerol of course is not "fringe". Someone needs to investigate how Wikipedia really works.
2604:B000:A218:41A:6340:676A:EF9A:26CE (
talk) 01:35, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- We go by what RS say. Slatersteven ( talk) 10:45, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- Well lets see, how many countries (in Scandinavia) adopted the Swedish model? If it is less than half that makes it a Fringe. Slatersteven ( talk) 10:45, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
Google Scholar is your friend. Spot checking examples,"focused protection" in the scientific literature always references the GBD. The term is novel, it did not exist as a separate named idea before the GBD. (It also occurs as a common collocation, e.g."biodiversity-focused protection of the seabed".) When you look for studies of this novel idea, it seems that many studies say it is not a good idea. Here is one. [1]
- The GBD authors made it up,
- few articles the field like it,
- the term is always referenced back to the GBD and the same few people.
The reliable sources say focused proteciton is fringe, and a little searching of the scholarly sources confirm that it smells fringy as hell. -- M.boli ( talk) 12:35, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- As has been observed it's basically eugenics. The idea is rich (white) people retreat to their gated mansions while the not so rich and white worker economy is left to face the virus and hopefully thinned out a bit. Some useful idiots bought into the idea without realising this.
Bon courage (
talk) 12:38, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- See
WP:NOTFORUM. Your mildly offensive remark adds nothing to the discussion about improving the article.
31.52.162.146 (
talk) 20:05, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- Not really, the eugenics angle is covered in RS [8] so is of course appropriate for Wikipedia to cover too. I guess if eugenics-fans feel offended then that is just tough. Bon courage ( talk) 20:13, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- Ah, yes, the notorious white supremacists
Sunetra Gupta,
Jay Bhattacharya and
Martin Kulldorff. Or perhaps the authors are the useful idiots? —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 21:43, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- The useful idiots angle is covered in our article too. Bon courage ( talk) 07:25, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
- See
WP:NOTFORUM. Your mildly offensive remark adds nothing to the discussion about improving the article.
31.52.162.146 (
talk) 20:05, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- About the word choice: I wonder whether choosing the word "fringe" in the lead could be an example of wikijargon creeping into the article. Perhaps it would be more informative to substitute a brief definition? Fringe science begins with "Fringe science refers to ideas whose attributes include being highly speculative or relying on premises already refuted". Fringe theory says "A fringe theory is an idea or a viewpoint which differs from the accepted scholarship of the time within its field". I believe that dictionary definitions tend to say something like "outside the mainstream view". Perhaps an explanation along those lines could be used, so that people unfamiliar with the jargon would be more likely to understand what's meant.
- (Of course, that might result in more complaints along the lines of "How dare you say 'rejected by basically all scholars, as well as anyone who thought through the logistics for more than two minutes, because low-risk people bring germs home from school and work, and share them with high-risk people at home'!, but you'd at least get some variety in the complaints.)
WhatamIdoing (
talk) 22:15, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think tis picks up on the headline here. [9] so is not the peculiar wiki-use. I think "nonsensical" would be maybe a better word. Bon courage ( talk) 06:12, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
- Are there actually any peer-reviewed scientific sources drawing a connection between the Swedish approach and GBD's "focused protection"? If so, they could be mentioned. However, the lack of use of "focused protection" in the literature instead leans strongly that it is indeed a fringe concept, and therefore the GBD with it. It should be noted that a softer approach relative to some other nations did not necessarily mean that they supported a GBD-esque approach in general, as sometimes certain things were lifted because other measures substituted, or case or hospitalization numbers were low; as the article itself notes, "By October 2020, many of these things had already happened in some parts of the world". Crossroads -talk- 00:46, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
References
-
^ Smith, Cameron A.; Yates, Christian A.; Ashby, Ben (2022-04-26).
"Critical weaknesses in shielding strategies for COVID-19". PLOS Global Public Health. 2 (4): e0000298.
doi:
10.1371/journal.pgph.0000298.
ISSN
2767-3375.
PMC
10021285.
PMID
36962415.
{{ cite journal}}: CS1 maint: PMC format ( link) CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI ( link)
There is no basis for Hob Gadling's revert of edit (April 22, 2024) that merely added footnote to the actual Declaration, that was described in the sentence. Citation to an original document does not violate original research policy and is helpful to people actually wanting to learn about a subject and verify sources for themselves. EABSE ( talk) EABSE 21:48, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- There surely is such a basis. On Wikipedia it is preferred to report what reliable secondary sources have to say rather then use primary sources - that is, Wikipedia is interested in what others say about a subject, not what the subject has to say about itself. Also - your edit did more than
merely added footnote to the actual Declaration
MrOllie ( talk) 21:52, 23 April 2024 (UTC)- The entry on the American Declaration of Independence links to a copy of the Declaration of American Independence; The entry on the Port Huron Statement links to a copy of the Port Huron Statement; The entry on the Declaration of Sentiments from the Seneca Falls Convention links to a copy of the Declaration--indeed, it is reprinted in the body of the entry; The entry on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution links to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; etc. This is perfectly appropriate, especially when dealing with a subject on the "contentious topics" list, where the problem is editors attempting to fob off opinion as fact or bias the entry through loaded language.
EABSE (
talk) 17:53, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
- EABSE what are you talking about? The link to the text is very visibly present on the infobox of the article. Looks like you could not be bothered to read the article. I suggest that you apologize to the other editors that you falsely accused. -- McSly ( talk) 18:14, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
- Say what? It
- The GBD article features two links to the document website: one in the {{ infobox document}} at the head of the article, one in the External Links section at the end. Your premise is false.
- Your proffered example United States Declaration of Independence article similarly features links in the external links section. It does not contain what you are trying to add, viz: an inline-cite to the text of the declaration in the lede paragraph. So your example does not support your edit, your example supports the revert to current text.
- I note the Port Huron Statement does have a citation link like you describe, but also note it lacks a document infobox.
- It looks like you failed to give even cursory looks at the article you are trying to edit.
- -- M.boli ( talk) 18:15, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
- The entry on the American Declaration of Independence links to a copy of the Declaration of American Independence; The entry on the Port Huron Statement links to a copy of the Port Huron Statement; The entry on the Declaration of Sentiments from the Seneca Falls Convention links to a copy of the Declaration--indeed, it is reprinted in the body of the entry; The entry on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution links to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; etc. This is perfectly appropriate, especially when dealing with a subject on the "contentious topics" list, where the problem is editors attempting to fob off opinion as fact or bias the entry through loaded language.
EABSE (
talk) 17:53, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
- PS: Hob Gadling didn't revert you. What are you talking about?
MrOllie (
talk) 22:02, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- Jay Bhattacharya. Wrong talk page, different edit, similar problem, same response. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 06:49, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
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Perhaps of relevance: One of the original authors has written about the GBD and the courts: The Government Censored Me and Other Scientists. We Fought Back—and Won. | The Free Press (thefp.com) 2600:6C67:1C00:5F7E:C94F:538E:ED1A:5365 ( talk) 19:22, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
- Bit cringe, considering the circumstances, but OK.
Polygnotus (
talk) 22:42, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
- Service: [1]
- As a source for the article, not OK. It's just a pseudoscientist putting his spin on his own story. "Wah, wah, we are being suppressed"? The GBD was everywhere, and still is. Suppression is something else. Get a better source if you want this. --
Hob Gadling (
talk) 07:14, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- The Free Press has an AllSides media bias rating of center.
https://www.allsides.com/news-source/the-free-press-media-bias. As for calling someone a "pseudo-scientist" a "pseudo-intellectual" might find that appropriate language, I do not.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 18:51, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
- You're replying to a nearly six-month-old conversation, but lest it go unsaid: there are a number of problems with this. First, I don't know why we should particularly care what "allsides.com" says about a site. Second, if we did, the rating is of "low or initial confidence." Third, a website being "center-leaning" does not have any relevance to whether it's a reliable source or not, and
previous discussion on Wikipedia certainly leans towards "unreliable". But fourth and most importantly, what one of the authors of the GBD has to say about the thing they authored is *never* going to be a reliable source for anything like the claims in the article, because it is inherently going to be a non-independent source. TL;DR:
Mandy Rice-Davies applies.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 20:29, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
- First, the opinion that Wikipedia has of a source is irrelevant to the content that source is relating in any particular instance of reporting. In this case, there are important links to primary documents one of which follows. For example,
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca5.214640/gov.uscourts.ca5.214640.238.1.pdf#p=23 is the court judgement that the government's opinion, which agrees with the opinion in this Wikipedia article, is incorrect. That this is not often reported fits with the mission statement of The Free Press (thefp.com), which is to relate otherwise ignored and/or censored news. That this provokes a negative opinion from Wikipedia's Editors is not germane and not relevant, some facts are just hard to accept for those with inflexible preconceptions. Hiding behind opinions about opinion makers rather than dealing with the facts at hand is just so much smoke.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 20:59, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
- You are confused. This is a Wikipedia article Talk page, and its goal is to improve the article. The article can only be improved with reliable sources, and the reliability of a source may be
irrelevant
to you but it is the only relevant thing for this page. If you have nothing useful to contribute, then you have no business here. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 21:16, 24 March 2024 (UTC)- The link I provided from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States District Court is a valid source. The content includes sanctions against the defendants Joseph R. Biden, Jr.; Vivek H. Murthy; Xavier Becerra; Department of Health & Human Services; Anthony Fauci; Et al., for conduct that aligns with the specific text, and methods of censure used on this website in this specific article. That injunction appears to apply to the text herein. What about that information do you consider "irrelevant?" You cannot hid behind a smoke screen and claim irrelevant process on this one, this is a legal decision which you ignore only by incurring unnecessary risk. Please consider this as a cease and desist. This article should either be drastically altered or deleted entirely.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 23:59, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia doesn't use court documents as sources, so it is not a 'valid source', no. Any in any case nothing determined by that ruling would have any effect on Wikipedia's article whatsoever. Courts don't get to decide science.
MrOllie (
talk) 00:11, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- Although the link is deprecated, primary sources on Wikipedia have been known to include "historical documents such as a diary, census, video or transcript of surveillance, a public hearing, trial, (sic, bold font is mine) or interviews"
/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Use_of_primary_sources_in_Wikipedia#Types_of_primary_sources. Your claim is that courts do not get to decide science. But, rightly or wrongly they do, see
/info/en/?search=Clarence_Darrow#Scopes_Trial Moreover, they have the force of law, and Scopes was fined $100, and the conviction was overturned on a technicality. As shown by the Scopes trial, the law, and your risks under it, are not related to your opinion of jurisprudence, where jurisprudence is the philosophy or science of law. For example, many jurisdictions would consider drunk driving punishable regardless of your opinion about drunk driving. Finally, this article does not follow science at all. Science is predicated upon the falsification of a falsifiable hypothesis, AKA test of hypothesis. This article does not entertain the proposition that the GBD is a hypothesis to be tested; rather this article presumes the GBD to be false and then seeks to demonstrate that it is false, which is called 'proving that an assumption was made,' i.e., very unscientific, and as above, unlawfully so.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 19:29, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- Your concerns are noted, but there are no
risks under it
to speak of, and vague legal threats will not get this article changed. MrOllie ( talk) 19:40, 26 March 2024 (UTC)- Incorrect, this article has changed considerably, but still either has a long way to go to become rational, or should be deleted entirely to prevent further harm to Wikipedia's reputation and its readers. No vague legal threat intended, if I strongly suggest that you do not drive (or write) drunk, consider me to be your friend with the car keys, not your enemy. 216.197.221.61 ( talk) 20:12, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think nothing about the GBD or any scientific controversy was adjudicated by the court.
- The court case alleges various government actors improperly censored content on various online platforms (by intimidating the companies), violating the complainants' speech rights. Here is one news source for this judgement: Times of India. The district and appellate courts found in the complainants favor.
- So what is the proposed modification to this article? Perhaps we could include a paragraph describing the court case. I think it might fit in the Reception section.
- Regarding some specific complaints by the IP editor:
conduct that aligns with the specific text, and methods of censure used on this website in this specific article
amounts to a claim that the government has threatened and intimidated Wikipedia into removing content.court judgement that the government's opinion, which agrees with the opinion in this Wikipedia article, is incorrect
amounts to a claim that the court has affirmed the GBD authors were right and the reliable sources describing the GBD and its place in the pandemic were wrong. The court did no such thing.
- There is nothing we can do in response to these two complaints, as there is nothing to support them. --
- -- M.boli ( talk) 20:14, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- Your concerns are noted, but there are no
- Although the link is deprecated, primary sources on Wikipedia have been known to include "historical documents such as a diary, census, video or transcript of surveillance, a public hearing, trial, (sic, bold font is mine) or interviews"
/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Use_of_primary_sources_in_Wikipedia#Types_of_primary_sources. Your claim is that courts do not get to decide science. But, rightly or wrongly they do, see
/info/en/?search=Clarence_Darrow#Scopes_Trial Moreover, they have the force of law, and Scopes was fined $100, and the conviction was overturned on a technicality. As shown by the Scopes trial, the law, and your risks under it, are not related to your opinion of jurisprudence, where jurisprudence is the philosophy or science of law. For example, many jurisdictions would consider drunk driving punishable regardless of your opinion about drunk driving. Finally, this article does not follow science at all. Science is predicated upon the falsification of a falsifiable hypothesis, AKA test of hypothesis. This article does not entertain the proposition that the GBD is a hypothesis to be tested; rather this article presumes the GBD to be false and then seeks to demonstrate that it is false, which is called 'proving that an assumption was made,' i.e., very unscientific, and as above, unlawfully so.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 19:29, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia doesn't use court documents as sources, so it is not a 'valid source', no. Any in any case nothing determined by that ruling would have any effect on Wikipedia's article whatsoever. Courts don't get to decide science.
MrOllie (
talk) 00:11, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- The link I provided from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States District Court is a valid source. The content includes sanctions against the defendants Joseph R. Biden, Jr.; Vivek H. Murthy; Xavier Becerra; Department of Health & Human Services; Anthony Fauci; Et al., for conduct that aligns with the specific text, and methods of censure used on this website in this specific article. That injunction appears to apply to the text herein. What about that information do you consider "irrelevant?" You cannot hid behind a smoke screen and claim irrelevant process on this one, this is a legal decision which you ignore only by incurring unnecessary risk. Please consider this as a cease and desist. This article should either be drastically altered or deleted entirely.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 23:59, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
- You are confused. This is a Wikipedia article Talk page, and its goal is to improve the article. The article can only be improved with reliable sources, and the reliability of a source may be
- First, the opinion that Wikipedia has of a source is irrelevant to the content that source is relating in any particular instance of reporting. In this case, there are important links to primary documents one of which follows. For example,
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca5.214640/gov.uscourts.ca5.214640.238.1.pdf#p=23 is the court judgement that the government's opinion, which agrees with the opinion in this Wikipedia article, is incorrect. That this is not often reported fits with the mission statement of The Free Press (thefp.com), which is to relate otherwise ignored and/or censored news. That this provokes a negative opinion from Wikipedia's Editors is not germane and not relevant, some facts are just hard to accept for those with inflexible preconceptions. Hiding behind opinions about opinion makers rather than dealing with the facts at hand is just so much smoke.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 20:59, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
- You're replying to a nearly six-month-old conversation, but lest it go unsaid: there are a number of problems with this. First, I don't know why we should particularly care what "allsides.com" says about a site. Second, if we did, the rating is of "low or initial confidence." Third, a website being "center-leaning" does not have any relevance to whether it's a reliable source or not, and
previous discussion on Wikipedia certainly leans towards "unreliable". But fourth and most importantly, what one of the authors of the GBD has to say about the thing they authored is *never* going to be a reliable source for anything like the claims in the article, because it is inherently going to be a non-independent source. TL;DR:
Mandy Rice-Davies applies.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 20:29, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
- The Free Press has an AllSides media bias rating of center.
https://www.allsides.com/news-source/the-free-press-media-bias. As for calling someone a "pseudo-scientist" a "pseudo-intellectual" might find that appropriate language, I do not.
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 18:51, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
- Scopes? Just because idiot politicians make idiot anti-science laws courts have to enforce, neither facts nor science will change, and Wikipedia will not pretend it does. --
Hob Gadling (
talk) 09:32, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
- There is no evidence of science in this article. All we are offered are secondary or tertiary opinions which amount to gibberish. I frankly don't care about what the editors hold as 'science' whilst they quote off-the-cuff rehashed journalistic opinion from the extreme left. Science relates data and draws opinions from significant findings that arise from it. Where is the data to support any of the opinions in this article?
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 05:39, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
- If you think that any reliable sources used in the article are not reliable, name them and give your reasoning. Pro tip: Claims that the sources are "extreme left" need to be relative to experts, not relative to your own position. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 06:35, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
- There is no evidence of science in this article. All we are offered are secondary or tertiary opinions which amount to gibberish. I frankly don't care about what the editors hold as 'science' whilst they quote off-the-cuff rehashed journalistic opinion from the extreme left. Science relates data and draws opinions from significant findings that arise from it. Where is the data to support any of the opinions in this article?
216.197.221.61 (
talk) 05:39, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
- Scopes? Just because idiot politicians make idiot anti-science laws courts have to enforce, neither facts nor science will change, and Wikipedia will not pretend it does. --
Hob Gadling (
talk) 09:32, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This article starts off with "...lockdowns could be avoided via the fringe notion of "focused protection"..." Many epidemiologists would not consider focused protection to be a 'fringe notion.' What it is not a neutral point of view. Then, we are treated to somebody being financed by somebody else who supports 'climate change denial.' Linking the opinion of a trio of epidemiologists to opinions about climate change is a far fetched conspiracy theory. Frankly, if a communist government financed by medical education, that would not make me a communist. (In my case, it had the opposite effect.) Ask the authors of the GBD if you actually want to know, but presenting circumstantial evidence of such tenuous type gives not only the impression of bias but the type of bias that would make for Great Satire like https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-touts-productive-climate-change-meeting-with-french-leader-napoleon-bonaparte Such would not be admissible as evidence for Allsides or other legitimate fact checking source. What it does do is confirm for the reader just how rediculous this article is. I could go on and on, but I'll cut it short by saying that anyone who is centrist would discard this article as pathetically biased. 2607:FEA8:D661:6700:2813:2E15:9BC1:DF0 ( talk) 02:40, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
- On Wikipedia,
WP:NPOV means that we follow the POV of mainstream reliable sources. It does not mean
false balance.
MrOllie (
talk) 03:04, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
- Name one "balanced" source for this article.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:2D67:650:9DE6:8B8F (
talk) 14:58, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- False balance is about how WE present sources, sources themselves to not have to be balanced.
Slatersteven (
talk) 15:04, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- I agree, but disallowing balanced mainstream media by projecting animus has lead to inappropriate animus in this article; the arguments are flawed, weak and unconvincing and it needs cleanup, for example, guilt by association is suspect, and climate change has no relationship to the GBD, just like Stalin's daughter was not a mass murderer. Another example, the John Snow Memorandum, read it yourself, is a tainted opinion piece, not a scientific report
https://www.johnsnowmemo.com/john-snow-memo.html Moreover, the journal in which it was published, The Lancet, has a disturbing tendency for animus against individual researchers, and is very unscientific at times. This Wikipedia article is unconvincing, it needs work.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:2D67:650:9DE6:8B8F (
talk) 17:19, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- What balanced mainstream media have we forbidden?
Slatersteven (
talk) 17:21, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- Many, and when I have cited them, they have been promptly deleted.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 20:59, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- This is your only edit, perhaps it would be easier for you to give some exampleS. Slatersteven ( talk) 21:17, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- Many, and when I have cited them, they have been promptly deleted.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 20:59, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- See
WP:5P2 "Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong on Wikipedia." You need to point actual relevant citations for what you want to say rather than go on about climate change and animus in the Lancet.
NadVolum (
talk) 21:22, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- When I have provided relevant citations, they have been deleted using one excuse or another. Look, as it stands now this article is frankly rediculous. I could help you but it is nearly impossible to do so when the citations are removed because of editorial zeal for a particular narrative to the exclusion of others. Here is one such "Citation impact and social media visibility of Great Barrington and John Snow signatories for COVID-19 strategy"
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/12/2/e052891.full.pdf?with-ds=yes Furthermore, as the fact checkers from the left were all over this the author(s) had to defend themselves. I have a great deal of respect for BMJ, and have published in it myself.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 21:18, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- If citations are removed, it is because they do not meet basic sourcing standards as given in
WP:RS,
WP:MEDRS and
WP:FRIND. Your link there is a good example of something that doesn't meet FRIND. It is quite far from the 'balanced mainstream media' you were suggesting we were missing.
MrOllie (
talk) 21:32, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- You are paying attention to who says something and disregarding what is being said. The article cited is unbiased and not WP:FRIND.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 21:46, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- "Paying attention to who says something" is the very cornerstone of
reliable sourcing,
verifiability, and Wikipedia itself.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 22:29, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- Suppose that if persons A and B say the same thing, and A is someone you like, but B is not, you then conclude that what A said was true, and what B said is false, even though they agree. That is nonsense. True enough, it is who you know and not what you know that gets you privilege, but that is corrupt. Seek truth, not tribalism. This is the second time just such a fallacy was exposed in this talk page. Above, in the House of Representatives Covid hearing section, two sources cited the same video, one was considered "bad", and the other "good" but were otherwise identical. Look at content to determine truth, not reputation. Reputation, is an ad hominem
/info/en/?search=Ad_hominem argument, widely recognized as illogical, here on Wikipedia as elsewhere.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 16:26, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- You are welcome to think that Wikipedia's content policies are nonsense, but we're still going to follow them.
MrOllie (
talk) 16:28, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia's policies are not nonsense, but using them to present falsehoods as truth is. Clearly this is a matter of interpretation.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 16:48, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- If falsehoods and truth are a matter of interpretation, then we prefer the reliable sources' interpretation to yours because of Wikipedia's policies. Can we stop this? -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 07:05, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia's policies are not nonsense, but using them to present falsehoods as truth is. Clearly this is a matter of interpretation.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 16:48, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- You are welcome to think that Wikipedia's content policies are nonsense, but we're still going to follow them.
MrOllie (
talk) 16:28, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- Suppose that if persons A and B say the same thing, and A is someone you like, but B is not, you then conclude that what A said was true, and what B said is false, even though they agree. That is nonsense. True enough, it is who you know and not what you know that gets you privilege, but that is corrupt. Seek truth, not tribalism. This is the second time just such a fallacy was exposed in this talk page. Above, in the House of Representatives Covid hearing section, two sources cited the same video, one was considered "bad", and the other "good" but were otherwise identical. Look at content to determine truth, not reputation. Reputation, is an ad hominem
/info/en/?search=Ad_hominem argument, widely recognized as illogical, here on Wikipedia as elsewhere.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 16:26, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- "Paying attention to who says something" is the very cornerstone of
reliable sourcing,
verifiability, and Wikipedia itself.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 22:29, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- You are paying attention to who says something and disregarding what is being said. The article cited is unbiased and not WP:FRIND.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 21:46, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- The evidence that the GBD is not-fringe is: a roundly debunked paper by
John Ioannidis (a formerly respected researcher who devolved into COVID crank-titute) utilizing the
Kardashian Index (a joke -- literally a joke). It doesn't get any funnier than this. --
M.boli (
talk) 21:44, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- Sarcasm is hardly proof of concept. There is a difference between claiming bias from a biased POV, and reputations from a biased POV and evidence of what is in the scientific literature. Research in a peer reviewed journal is more important for Wikipedians that a post on social media containing no analysis whatsoever in a comical presentation. Stop ignoring the facts just to protect your POV, please.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 21:52, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- John Ioannidis's most famous paper already had him tending towards attention seeking. What the title said was badly wrong. The paper did show that better standards were needed and it probably would not have had as much influence that way if it had been written without the hype, so there's a good argument for the hype. But that was not scientific.
NadVolum (
talk) 00:27, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- Please explain why John Ioannidis's reputation has anything to do with the context here. In specific, what publication are you referring to, and what does his personality have to do with anything?
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 16:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- I see that John Ioannidis is the author of what I cited. I frankly don't care who he is. I do care what he said in that paper, "Both GBD and JSM include many stellar scientists, but JSM has far more powerful social media presence and this may have shaped the impression that it is the dominant narrative." I see nothing wrong with that particular opinion. With respect to some of his other opinions, I do not always agree, for example I do not agree with his sweeping statements about the use of statistics in medicine. Samuel Clemens said that "There are liars, dammed liars, and statisticians" and any set of rules can be abused. However, this most often, in my experience, boils down to which assumptions are made, for example, if we assume that "climate change is bad" and prove that we have assumed that "climate change is bad," then we have proved nothing. In those cases it really doesn't matter what statistics we have used. If, on the other hand, we assume that "climate change is good" and we show that is wrong then we have said something that is at least not self-referential. Pay attention to trying for a less self-referential article if you wish to write something convincing. As it stands now, there is too much hand waving to convince anyone of anything in this article.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 17:56, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- Fortunately, we are not attempting to convince anyone of anything with this article, or any other article on Wikipedia. Rather, we are trying to summarize what reliable sources say about a topic. The paper you've linked is already discussed in the article, so you'll need more than that one link to demonstrate that the preponderance of reliable sources support your preferred opinion about the GBD.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 19:53, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- Very funny. I could provide many links, but the preponderance of bias in this article would not change appreciably, and no, this is not applicable to the preponderance of articles on Wikipedia. It only applies to current politics, not to statistics, math, physics, chemistry and indeed most topics. Consider please that when the bias is so thick that logic has been forsaken, all I can do is to implore you to think more carefully so as not to write text that is self-contradictory. 2607:FEA8:D661:6700:5168:D308:E5FD:ACB4 ( talk) 06:09, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- Fortunately, we are not attempting to convince anyone of anything with this article, or any other article on Wikipedia. Rather, we are trying to summarize what reliable sources say about a topic. The paper you've linked is already discussed in the article, so you'll need more than that one link to demonstrate that the preponderance of reliable sources support your preferred opinion about the GBD.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 19:53, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- I see that John Ioannidis is the author of what I cited. I frankly don't care who he is. I do care what he said in that paper, "Both GBD and JSM include many stellar scientists, but JSM has far more powerful social media presence and this may have shaped the impression that it is the dominant narrative." I see nothing wrong with that particular opinion. With respect to some of his other opinions, I do not always agree, for example I do not agree with his sweeping statements about the use of statistics in medicine. Samuel Clemens said that "There are liars, dammed liars, and statisticians" and any set of rules can be abused. However, this most often, in my experience, boils down to which assumptions are made, for example, if we assume that "climate change is bad" and prove that we have assumed that "climate change is bad," then we have proved nothing. In those cases it really doesn't matter what statistics we have used. If, on the other hand, we assume that "climate change is good" and we show that is wrong then we have said something that is at least not self-referential. Pay attention to trying for a less self-referential article if you wish to write something convincing. As it stands now, there is too much hand waving to convince anyone of anything in this article.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 17:56, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- Please explain why John Ioannidis's reputation has anything to do with the context here. In specific, what publication are you referring to, and what does his personality have to do with anything?
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:C41E:7E07:193F:DC72 (
talk) 16:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- John Ioannidis's most famous paper already had him tending towards attention seeking. What the title said was badly wrong. The paper did show that better standards were needed and it probably would not have had as much influence that way if it had been written without the hype, so there's a good argument for the hype. But that was not scientific.
NadVolum (
talk) 00:27, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- Sarcasm is hardly proof of concept. There is a difference between claiming bias from a biased POV, and reputations from a biased POV and evidence of what is in the scientific literature. Research in a peer reviewed journal is more important for Wikipedians that a post on social media containing no analysis whatsoever in a comical presentation. Stop ignoring the facts just to protect your POV, please.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 21:52, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- If citations are removed, it is because they do not meet basic sourcing standards as given in
WP:RS,
WP:MEDRS and
WP:FRIND. Your link there is a good example of something that doesn't meet FRIND. It is quite far from the 'balanced mainstream media' you were suggesting we were missing.
MrOllie (
talk) 21:32, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- When I have provided relevant citations, they have been deleted using one excuse or another. Look, as it stands now this article is frankly rediculous. I could help you but it is nearly impossible to do so when the citations are removed because of editorial zeal for a particular narrative to the exclusion of others. Here is one such "Citation impact and social media visibility of Great Barrington and John Snow signatories for COVID-19 strategy"
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/12/2/e052891.full.pdf?with-ds=yes Furthermore, as the fact checkers from the left were all over this the author(s) had to defend themselves. I have a great deal of respect for BMJ, and have published in it myself.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:541C:360A:B9B7:A4F4 (
talk) 21:18, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- What balanced mainstream media have we forbidden?
Slatersteven (
talk) 17:21, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- I agree, but disallowing balanced mainstream media by projecting animus has lead to inappropriate animus in this article; the arguments are flawed, weak and unconvincing and it needs cleanup, for example, guilt by association is suspect, and climate change has no relationship to the GBD, just like Stalin's daughter was not a mass murderer. Another example, the John Snow Memorandum, read it yourself, is a tainted opinion piece, not a scientific report
https://www.johnsnowmemo.com/john-snow-memo.html Moreover, the journal in which it was published, The Lancet, has a disturbing tendency for animus against individual researchers, and is very unscientific at times. This Wikipedia article is unconvincing, it needs work.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:2D67:650:9DE6:8B8F (
talk) 17:19, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- False balance is about how WE present sources, sources themselves to not have to be balanced.
Slatersteven (
talk) 15:04, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- Name one "balanced" source for this article.
2607:FEA8:D661:6700:2D67:650:9DE6:8B8F (
talk) 14:58, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Jonathan Howard on
Science-Based Medicine: While “not vulnerable” people lived in a world of pure COVID, “vulnerable” people would be locked down in a world of zero COVID. The only tasks were identifying “vulnerable” and “not vulnerable” people and creating an impenetrable wall between them.
[2] --
Hob Gadling (
talk) 15:24, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
- This is the crux of why the idea is BS; perhaps this needs to be brought out more? Bon courage ( talk) 17:25, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
- There was so many other things wrong with what they said! They knew it was a major killer, you'd want to slow it down generally so the hospitals wouldn't get broken and there is always the hope of better treatments being found with a delay even if one has no hope for a vaccine. There was no good reason to try make it worse than the 1918 flu. NadVolum ( talk) 18:42, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
Please see WP:NOTAFORUM. 31.52.163.164 ( talk) 20:53, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
In the section regarding critical commentaries about the GBD, there is a dropbox containing a link to a video of Matt Hancock, a British government minister during the COVID-19 lockdowns, discussing the GBD. The text discusses the British government response to the GBD, in particular referring to Matt Hancock, in the first few paragraphs of the section. Yet the video of Matt Hancock speaking is placed several paragraphs later, at which point the article has moved on to discuss the response in other countries. I think the link to the Matt Hancock video should be moved within the text so that it is shown immediately next to the paragraphs discussing the British government reactions to the GBD. Cowingzitron ( talk) 01:19, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
The notion of focused protection was essentially Swedish national policy throughout the pandemic. Is this compatible with being a "fringe notion"? –— St.Nerol ( talk, contribs) 13:40, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- In a word: yes.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 13:45, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Yes indeed. There are a lot of myths about Sweden.
[3]
Bon courage (
talk) 13:46, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Spare me talk about "myths". I'm Swedish, and I know what restrictions we had. They were quite compatible with the declaration.Schools and universities should be open: Elementary schools were open, high schools and universities periodically and partially closed. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed: Activities for youth were prioritized and mostly open. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home: People were generally allowed to work on-site. Restaurants and other businesses should open: They were, although suffering from various restrictions. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume: Cinemas, churches, etc. were open, but with varying restrictions on the number of people who could gather at the same time. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 14:12, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Reliable sources call it fringe, and so we do too. Your personal experiences are interesting, but not useful for this article as original research. And regardless, a single country's government subscribing to a particular scientific position doesn't make it non-fringe; as an example, South Africa or the US and HIV/AIDS denialism. This has been discussed extensively in previous talk page discussions; feel free to review those discussions for the rationales, and if you have a significant quantity of reliable sources that describe focused protection as non-fringe, feel free to present them. Writ Keeper ⚇ ♔ 14:17, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- And was COVID encouraged to 'sweep through' the population resulting in herd immunity in a few weeks? We have excellent sources for this being bullshit. If you have counter-sources, produce them. Your personal takes are of no use for writing the article.
Bon courage (
talk) 14:18, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- And where is any mention about "herd immunity in a few weeks"? The official Swedish regulations and recommendations at different stages of the pandemic are not classified. What might or might not exist is an explicit published comparison to the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD). In any case, the similarities, together with the fact that Sweden is doing rather well in retrospective comparative evaluations of pandemic policy, could at least indicate some POV problems here. The sources calling it "fringe" seem to be mainly from late 2020. My impression is that this article is not very up-to-date. –—
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 15:08, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Again, feel free to present reliable sources to the contrary. Without such sources, this article is as up-to-date as it needs to be. Writ Keeper ⚇ ♔ 15:10, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Here's an excellent update we could usefully draw on.
[4]
Bon courage (
talk) 15:11, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- The above piece from David Gorski seems rather informal and combative. Here's
a comparison between GBD and a paper by Donald Henderson, who led the eradication of smallpox. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 15:35, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Err, WP:SBM is an excellent source for fringe science. You seemed to link to something by a contrarian business journalist? Bon courage ( talk) 15:42, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Moreover, a contrarian business journalist writing for a
questionable-at-best publication. I don't see any mention of the GBD in the portion of the article I have access to, though I suppose it's not the whole thing. Regardless, that's not going to fly.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 15:47, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- The comparison with the policies argued in
the paper by Henderson seems correct. I can hardly believe that Henderson was a fringe epidemiologist in 2006. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 15:55, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Since Henderson died in 2016, it seems a bit fringey to invoke him in relation to a virus which didn't exist until 3 years later. Bon courage ( talk) 15:57, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- According to your own article, Henderson died in 2016, three years before COVID-19 even existed. Without an actually reliable source (not just one that "seems correct" according to you), he is entirely irrelevant to this article. See also
WP:SYNTH.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 15:58, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- This reasoning is backwards. Since Henderson wrote things with apparent relevance to subsequent events (as anyone can see), hopefully there are or will be reliable sources to this effect. I'm sorry that you regard the level-headed piece on Henderson as appearing in a "questionable-at-best publication". I guess time will tell. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 16:22, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Time has told. GBD was always a fringe idea and has settled into becoming the province of cranks, contrarians and grifters. Bon courage ( talk) 16:33, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
hopefully there are or will be reliable sources to this effect
: if and when there are, you can link them, and we can discuss the potential relevance of this whole line of reasoning to the article. Not before then. The burden of proof is on you to provide these sources; until you've done so, there's nothing really to discuss. Writ Keeper ⚇ ♔ 17:14, 19 March 2024 (UTC)- I reserve the right to start a discussion without having an array of sources in my back pocket to prove a predetermined point. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 18:22, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Sure, but without those sources, such a talk page discussion will never lead to changes in the article.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 18:28, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- And therefore,
WP:NOTFORUM applies. --
Hob Gadling (
talk) 19:39, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, nice pile. What it communicates: Never raised a percieved issue, based on limited knowledge, without an absolutely watertight case. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 22:41, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- This is a WP:CTOP (you have now been alerted) and Talk pages should be used to improve the article, not for general discussion. If somebody has an actual proposal (with source) please make it. But Wikipedia has a duty to call out fringe notions for what they (according to quality sources) are. So that won't be changing unless the sourcing changes. Bon courage ( talk) 04:38, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, nice pile. What it communicates: Never raised a percieved issue, based on limited knowledge, without an absolutely watertight case. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 22:41, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- And therefore,
WP:NOTFORUM applies. --
Hob Gadling (
talk) 19:39, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Sure, but without those sources, such a talk page discussion will never lead to changes in the article.
Writ Keeper
⚇
♔ 18:28, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- I reserve the right to start a discussion without having an array of sources in my back pocket to prove a predetermined point. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 18:22, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- This reasoning is backwards. Since Henderson wrote things with apparent relevance to subsequent events (as anyone can see), hopefully there are or will be reliable sources to this effect. I'm sorry that you regard the level-headed piece on Henderson as appearing in a "questionable-at-best publication". I guess time will tell. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 16:22, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- The comparison with the policies argued in
the paper by Henderson seems correct. I can hardly believe that Henderson was a fringe epidemiologist in 2006. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 15:55, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- The above piece from David Gorski seems rather informal and combative. Here's
a comparison between GBD and a paper by Donald Henderson, who led the eradication of smallpox. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 15:35, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding Sweden: what horse manure. First, how Swedish authorities handled the epidemic in the first 3/4 year was winging it, there is no tie-in to a strategy called "focused protection." Second, by the end of 2020 the mortality and morbidity rates were higher than in similarly situated countries and the health system was overwhelmed. The authorities then adopted many of the same measures as in other countries, including much more masking and vaccination requirements. I'm always amused when commenters show and start throwing the word "Sweden" around as if it meant something. -- M.boli ( talk) 13:06, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- And where is any mention about "herd immunity in a few weeks"? The official Swedish regulations and recommendations at different stages of the pandemic are not classified. What might or might not exist is an explicit published comparison to the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD). In any case, the similarities, together with the fact that Sweden is doing rather well in retrospective comparative evaluations of pandemic policy, could at least indicate some POV problems here. The sources calling it "fringe" seem to be mainly from late 2020. My impression is that this article is not very up-to-date. –—
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 15:08, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Spare me talk about "myths". I'm Swedish, and I know what restrictions we had. They were quite compatible with the declaration.Schools and universities should be open: Elementary schools were open, high schools and universities periodically and partially closed. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed: Activities for youth were prioritized and mostly open. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home: People were generally allowed to work on-site. Restaurants and other businesses should open: They were, although suffering from various restrictions. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume: Cinemas, churches, etc. were open, but with varying restrictions on the number of people who could gather at the same time. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 14:12, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- Yes indeed. There are a lot of myths about Sweden.
[3]
Bon courage (
talk) 13:46, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- I have mentioned these sources before but they are relevant to your objections and might warrant consideration. Why these articles are not integrated into the article should give editors pause. The statnews sources suggests what you describe here regarding Sweden. I find these articles have more dispassionate commentary.
[5]
[6]
[7].
SmolBrane (
talk) 22:36, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- But think pieces by journalists and students are precisely the kind of rubbish sources that relevant experts have complained about for creating a false balance in the lay discourse (as discussed for example in
PMID:36962077), and of course this is
not something Wikipedia is going to indulge in. GBD isn't going away as it's become part of the standard issue COVID crank toolkit, alongside ivermectin, anti-vaxx, and lab leak. Retrospective pieces (like the SBM one linked above) are useful and in time it's likely scholars will analyze more how GBD fits into the antiscience scene. J Howard's book, We Want Them Infected (which we cite) also offers a useful retrospective.
Bon courage (
talk) 04:12, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- Isn't there a guideline to the effect that secondary, reputable sources often are preferable to primary? Is Stat News well regarded? The author of the piece is a doctoral candidate in History of Science. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 20:41, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- We do not prefer secondary news sources to peer-reviewed articles, no.
MrOllie (
talk) 21:11, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- Here's the policy I was thinking of:
WP:PSTS, Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 09:02, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- The Stat source is a novel opinion piece (primary source) from a student, and lay press is not reliable for
WP:BMI. So double no.
Bon courage (
talk) 09:09, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- To be fair, if "lay press" applies to Stat News, then it would surely also apply to articles by Gorski in the Science-Based Medicine group blog, which is mentioned approvingly above and is cited in the article presently (although not extensively). Do his articles on there receive any kind of editorial review? Probably not. And even if they did, he's an oncologist and surgeon, not an epidemiologist, in the field of public health, or other directly relevant field. So such a source isn't great either. Really, I'd hope to see more focus on peer-reviewed commentary in the scientific press, which there should be more of by now relative to late 2020 when a lot of the material in the article was written.
Crossroads
-talk- 00:40, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
- WP:SBM. Scientific journals rarely engage with fringe ideas, so, specialists for fringe ideas, like Gorski, are unusally the best we can get. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 04:50, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
- To be fair, if "lay press" applies to Stat News, then it would surely also apply to articles by Gorski in the Science-Based Medicine group blog, which is mentioned approvingly above and is cited in the article presently (although not extensively). Do his articles on there receive any kind of editorial review? Probably not. And even if they did, he's an oncologist and surgeon, not an epidemiologist, in the field of public health, or other directly relevant field. So such a source isn't great either. Really, I'd hope to see more focus on peer-reviewed commentary in the scientific press, which there should be more of by now relative to late 2020 when a lot of the material in the article was written.
Crossroads
-talk- 00:40, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
-
WP:NEWSORG says
Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics
. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 09:22, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- The Stat source is a novel opinion piece (primary source) from a student, and lay press is not reliable for
WP:BMI. So double no.
Bon courage (
talk) 09:09, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- Here's the policy I was thinking of:
WP:PSTS, Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 09:02, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- We do not prefer secondary news sources to peer-reviewed articles, no.
MrOllie (
talk) 21:11, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- Isn't there a guideline to the effect that secondary, reputable sources often are preferable to primary? Is Stat News well regarded? The author of the piece is a doctoral candidate in History of Science. —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 20:41, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- But think pieces by journalists and students are precisely the kind of rubbish sources that relevant experts have complained about for creating a false balance in the lay discourse (as discussed for example in
PMID:36962077), and of course this is
not something Wikipedia is going to indulge in. GBD isn't going away as it's become part of the standard issue COVID crank toolkit, alongside ivermectin, anti-vaxx, and lab leak. Retrospective pieces (like the SBM one linked above) are useful and in time it's likely scholars will analyze more how GBD fits into the antiscience scene. J Howard's book, We Want Them Infected (which we cite) also offers a useful retrospective.
Bon courage (
talk) 04:12, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- @
St.nerol of course is not "fringe". Someone needs to investigate how Wikipedia really works.
2604:B000:A218:41A:6340:676A:EF9A:26CE (
talk) 01:35, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- We go by what RS say. Slatersteven ( talk) 10:45, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- Well lets see, how many countries (in Scandinavia) adopted the Swedish model? If it is less than half that makes it a Fringe. Slatersteven ( talk) 10:45, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
Google Scholar is your friend. Spot checking examples,"focused protection" in the scientific literature always references the GBD. The term is novel, it did not exist as a separate named idea before the GBD. (It also occurs as a common collocation, e.g."biodiversity-focused protection of the seabed".) When you look for studies of this novel idea, it seems that many studies say it is not a good idea. Here is one. [1]
- The GBD authors made it up,
- few articles the field like it,
- the term is always referenced back to the GBD and the same few people.
The reliable sources say focused proteciton is fringe, and a little searching of the scholarly sources confirm that it smells fringy as hell. -- M.boli ( talk) 12:35, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- As has been observed it's basically eugenics. The idea is rich (white) people retreat to their gated mansions while the not so rich and white worker economy is left to face the virus and hopefully thinned out a bit. Some useful idiots bought into the idea without realising this.
Bon courage (
talk) 12:38, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- See
WP:NOTFORUM. Your mildly offensive remark adds nothing to the discussion about improving the article.
31.52.162.146 (
talk) 20:05, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- Not really, the eugenics angle is covered in RS [8] so is of course appropriate for Wikipedia to cover too. I guess if eugenics-fans feel offended then that is just tough. Bon courage ( talk) 20:13, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- Ah, yes, the notorious white supremacists
Sunetra Gupta,
Jay Bhattacharya and
Martin Kulldorff. Or perhaps the authors are the useful idiots? —
St.Nerol (
talk,
contribs) 21:43, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- The useful idiots angle is covered in our article too. Bon courage ( talk) 07:25, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
- See
WP:NOTFORUM. Your mildly offensive remark adds nothing to the discussion about improving the article.
31.52.162.146 (
talk) 20:05, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- About the word choice: I wonder whether choosing the word "fringe" in the lead could be an example of wikijargon creeping into the article. Perhaps it would be more informative to substitute a brief definition? Fringe science begins with "Fringe science refers to ideas whose attributes include being highly speculative or relying on premises already refuted". Fringe theory says "A fringe theory is an idea or a viewpoint which differs from the accepted scholarship of the time within its field". I believe that dictionary definitions tend to say something like "outside the mainstream view". Perhaps an explanation along those lines could be used, so that people unfamiliar with the jargon would be more likely to understand what's meant.
- (Of course, that might result in more complaints along the lines of "How dare you say 'rejected by basically all scholars, as well as anyone who thought through the logistics for more than two minutes, because low-risk people bring germs home from school and work, and share them with high-risk people at home'!, but you'd at least get some variety in the complaints.)
WhatamIdoing (
talk) 22:15, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think tis picks up on the headline here. [9] so is not the peculiar wiki-use. I think "nonsensical" would be maybe a better word. Bon courage ( talk) 06:12, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
- Are there actually any peer-reviewed scientific sources drawing a connection between the Swedish approach and GBD's "focused protection"? If so, they could be mentioned. However, the lack of use of "focused protection" in the literature instead leans strongly that it is indeed a fringe concept, and therefore the GBD with it. It should be noted that a softer approach relative to some other nations did not necessarily mean that they supported a GBD-esque approach in general, as sometimes certain things were lifted because other measures substituted, or case or hospitalization numbers were low; as the article itself notes, "By October 2020, many of these things had already happened in some parts of the world". Crossroads -talk- 00:46, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
References
-
^ Smith, Cameron A.; Yates, Christian A.; Ashby, Ben (2022-04-26).
"Critical weaknesses in shielding strategies for COVID-19". PLOS Global Public Health. 2 (4): e0000298.
doi:
10.1371/journal.pgph.0000298.
ISSN
2767-3375.
PMC
10021285.
PMID
36962415.
{{ cite journal}}: CS1 maint: PMC format ( link) CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI ( link)
There is no basis for Hob Gadling's revert of edit (April 22, 2024) that merely added footnote to the actual Declaration, that was described in the sentence. Citation to an original document does not violate original research policy and is helpful to people actually wanting to learn about a subject and verify sources for themselves. EABSE ( talk) EABSE 21:48, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- There surely is such a basis. On Wikipedia it is preferred to report what reliable secondary sources have to say rather then use primary sources - that is, Wikipedia is interested in what others say about a subject, not what the subject has to say about itself. Also - your edit did more than
merely added footnote to the actual Declaration
MrOllie ( talk) 21:52, 23 April 2024 (UTC)- The entry on the American Declaration of Independence links to a copy of the Declaration of American Independence; The entry on the Port Huron Statement links to a copy of the Port Huron Statement; The entry on the Declaration of Sentiments from the Seneca Falls Convention links to a copy of the Declaration--indeed, it is reprinted in the body of the entry; The entry on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution links to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; etc. This is perfectly appropriate, especially when dealing with a subject on the "contentious topics" list, where the problem is editors attempting to fob off opinion as fact or bias the entry through loaded language.
EABSE (
talk) 17:53, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
- EABSE what are you talking about? The link to the text is very visibly present on the infobox of the article. Looks like you could not be bothered to read the article. I suggest that you apologize to the other editors that you falsely accused. -- McSly ( talk) 18:14, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
- Say what? It
- The GBD article features two links to the document website: one in the {{ infobox document}} at the head of the article, one in the External Links section at the end. Your premise is false.
- Your proffered example United States Declaration of Independence article similarly features links in the external links section. It does not contain what you are trying to add, viz: an inline-cite to the text of the declaration in the lede paragraph. So your example does not support your edit, your example supports the revert to current text.
- I note the Port Huron Statement does have a citation link like you describe, but also note it lacks a document infobox.
- It looks like you failed to give even cursory looks at the article you are trying to edit.
- -- M.boli ( talk) 18:15, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
- The entry on the American Declaration of Independence links to a copy of the Declaration of American Independence; The entry on the Port Huron Statement links to a copy of the Port Huron Statement; The entry on the Declaration of Sentiments from the Seneca Falls Convention links to a copy of the Declaration--indeed, it is reprinted in the body of the entry; The entry on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution links to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; etc. This is perfectly appropriate, especially when dealing with a subject on the "contentious topics" list, where the problem is editors attempting to fob off opinion as fact or bias the entry through loaded language.
EABSE (
talk) 17:53, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
- PS: Hob Gadling didn't revert you. What are you talking about?
MrOllie (
talk) 22:02, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- Jay Bhattacharya. Wrong talk page, different edit, similar problem, same response. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 06:49, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
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