I noticed that you recently tagged the Kate Atkinson Boehme article for non-notability. Why did you do that? She was a well-known and well-respected New Thought writer of her era and at least some of her books are still in print, 100 years after their first publication.
I think it is always better to add data to Wikipedia than to suggest taking an article away.
I suggest that in the future instead of tagging a stub about a long-deceased author as non-notabile that you do a simple amazon search on the author, pick up the status of any current in-print books and current ISBNs and add same to the author's article. That's what i just did. And then i removed your spurious non-notability tag.
cat yronwode Catherineyronwode ( talk) 04:39, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I also missed the merge with mediumship of channelling and consider it to be a terrible idea.
Do you know what the history was or what the old article was like?
Thanks. -- Lucyintheskywithdada ( talk) 23:22, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I noticed you made a few nice edits this fall to the article on Spiritualism. The article has fallen into a kind of crisis in the last week. An editor, without discussion, moved it to Spiritualism (religious movement). Another editor, who apparently is unable to distinguish between animism and spiritualism, grabbed the original Spiritualism title and has written an interesting article, as well as adding significant material to the now Spiritualism (religious movement) article. There is probably something worthy in all the new stuff, but it will take sorting out. Hoping that you'll take a look.-- Anthon.Eff ( talk) 23:49, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I reverted some original research from it that attacks your motives for something or the other but perhaps you should have a look at it. I t is on my watchlist but ...... : Albion moonlight ( talk) 12:54, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi Cat. need your help. Tags for deletion have been place on different articles pertaining to New Thought Divine Science has been deleted Religious Science is Tagged by the same person. He seem to have some sort of issue with religion or things that cannot be proved. Can you take a look maybe I'm wrong. Can you let me know. JGG59 ( talk) 02:34, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
An article that you have been involved in editing, Florence Scovel Shinn, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Florence Scovel Shinn. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? Lumos3 ( talk) 09:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure why you think the article is locked from editing, unless you didn't try to edit the page. It is semi-protected to prevent anonymous IPs and newly created accounts from editing due to continuing problems with vandalism, and such is noted at the top of the page when it is opened. There is no reason why you can't fix typos and punctuation problems. I will take this opportunity to suggest to you that it garners no favor and is bad form to write on a talk page of a high profile article (at least in terms of keeping on top of vandalism and inanities) that "obviously this is a contended and not very well written article". While there is often a great deal of debate regarding what should be added to the article or what should come out, there is no air of contentiousness amongst the editors who debate. Meanwhile, perhaps you didn't notice that the "cooking a snook at the law" comment is, in fact, a direct quote from this source and therefore cannot be changed. In any case, feel free to whip this article into shape and monitor it for the general rambling stupidities and occasional "Amy Winehouse is a CRACK ADDICT" additions and that constantly must be removed. Wildhartlivie ( talk) 02:38, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
--Cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 06:48, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
Hi - I was reviewing your subpage about the New Thought-related topics and fixed a few typos. Those corrections were reverted by an IP, for reasons I can't guess. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 04:50, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Your edit summary at the Michael Dowd article and associated talk page comment resembles WP:Wikistalking and shows misunderstanding of Wikipedia:Verification policy as well as a failure to assume good faith of Hrafn. This follows after you made accusations of libel and slander impinging on your employment, and then asserted that "The legal threat is real" after being reminded that making legal threats is blockable. [2] Far from withdrawing the threat or stopping editing, you're begun to escalate the dispute by preparing an ANI complaint against Hrafn. [3] His work in improving compliance with verification policy is useful and valid, and you do not seem to appreciate that Wikipedia is not for promoting or giving undue weight to fringe views. Hrafn has a good grasp of policy, and you should work with him to improve these articles so that they are fully cited and give due weight to majority views. However, before going any further you must explicitly withdraw your legal threat in accordance with Wikipedia:No legal threats. As that policy states that "Users who make legal threats will typically be blocked from editing indefinitely while legal threats are outstanding.", a report has been raised at WP:ANI#Catherineyronwode. .. . dave souza, talk 17:02, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Cat:
As you know from the above comment, there is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Catherineyronwode about some words you used in the long standing disagreement between yourself and User:Hrafn. I've read enough to understand why you might have some of the feelings you do about his previous actions. I see your work in progress at User_talk:Catherineyronwode/ANI-proposal and feel for you. I'd like to clarify what your meaning may have been, as I don't see the legal threat that others have stated. What I see is that you are concerned about some of the comments that another user have made about you, and whether it might interfere with your reputation and future freelance writing opportunities. I think this is a basic dispute between two users, and not anything more. If you would not mind, could you answer some questions for me to clarify to others what your intent may be?
Wikipedia:No_legal_threats says, among other things: "It is important to refrain from making comments that others may reasonably “understand” as legal threats, even if the comments are not intended in that fashion. For example, if you repeatedly assert that another editor's comments are "defamatory" or "libelous", that editor might interpret this as a threat to sue for defamation, even if it is not intended." Probably, when you said "Do not accuse your fellow editors of committing illegal acts. You have now gone past gratuitous personal insult and into libel and slander, impinging on my ability to secure employment as a freelance writer" The two legal terms libel and slander set off someone's legal detector.
And
"Rather than blocking immediately, administrators should seek to clarify the user's meaning and make sure that a mere misunderstanding is not involved." Several people have offered opinions as to what you must have meant. I thought I would just ask.
Questions:
Atom ( talk) 19:37, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Per your concerns there; I was trying to make such a reassurance because no evidence of this ganging up was there,as of my writing it. MEDCAB is there to help users solve content disputes- if there is a problem with conduct, there's nothing that can be done through MEDCAB. I'm trying to "weed out" the content concerns so that we can solve those, at least. If there is anything like this occurring, it would have to be dealt with through WP:ANI, WP:ARBCOM, etc. JeremyMcCracken ( talk) ( contribs) 15:45, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
An article that you have been involved in editing, Daylight Origins Society, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daylight Origins Society. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? Hrafn Talk Stalk 04:49, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi Catherine. I added an example to the Hrafn ANI list. Please feel free to edit or move it. -- Firefly322 ( talk) 13:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Firefly. 322. I don't have time to edit it tonight, but i will try to get to it soon. I will note that it is your contribution, but i will also edit it a bit to match the style of the rest of the document. Ditto for what Madman just added, too.
I've been off writing, and have returned to find an interesting display of bravado on the part of Orangemarlin, Jim, and Dave (above -- and Dave is an admin, no less). Obviously it's a hot-button issue. Obviously i absolutely do not like to see my talk page used as a place for others to post sarcasm, personal attacks, or trash-talk.
To all who posted here, i'd ike to make a comment. This will not apear on the AN/I report, but it will certainly explain what i am up to and why i have never considered hrafn an "enemy" of mine:
As i have explained repeatedly, it is difficult to demonstrate a pattern of editing that is disruptive if one has no links to pages that provide examples. That is why this material began as a log of my personal interactions with hrafn, and grew to include a log of the experiences of others which i had wtnessed first-hand, and now included material brought to the page which i did not witness first-hand.
I initially encountered hrafn in the New Thought Movement section earlier this year -- perhaps in April, perhaps as early as January. Due to my other duties, i only sporadically write and edit in Wikipedia, usually working for a month or two at a time, and then taking a several-month layoff except for drive-by copy-edits. In looking over the history of what had changed on my watchlist during my most recent wiki-break, i was suprised and dismayed at hrafn's level of incivility and bullying, especially toward inexperienced editors, against whom he was using selected portions of Wikipedia policy as if he were a bureucrat or at least an admin with a scowling, punishing mind-set.
He was scattershot fact-tagging, cutting text, effacing-by-redirect, and bullying editors at a number of New Thought pages, but he seemed quite uninformed on the topic of New Thought, seeming to treat it as if it were primarily either a religion or a form of pseudoscience, or both. His heated and abrasive comments hinted to me that he was on a mission against New Thought, but for the life of me i could not figure out why until i found his anti-Christianity and anti-creationist edits. Then it clicked: he had mistaken New Thought for a pseudoscientific or anti-scientism Christian religious denomination, and was attacking it as such, using "verifiability" tags to tear apart pages that dealt primarily with the anecdotal philosophical, empirical, or mystical beliefs of a group of late 19th and early 20th century authors. He was asking -- no, he was DEMANDING -- that the personal viewpoints of folks like Phineas Quimby (who believed that a sick person's mental state could influence his or her medical condition) or Wallace Wattles (who believed that a mental state of willed certainty of purpose could influence a person's business success and that skipping breakfast was a Good Idea) be "verified" by 3rd party reports or discarded from Wikipedia!
Now, it was okay with hrafn that Wikipedia claims that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "apparently" believed in fairies. I checked; hrafn has never insisted on having Conan Doyle's psychical beliefs in fairies be "verified" by a 3rd party under threat of any mention of same being discarded from Wikipedia.
Likewise, it was okay with hrafn that Wikipedia claims that Pythagoras taught that human contact with beans was a Bad Idea. The sentence "The Pythagorean code further restricted the diet of its followers, prohibiting the consumption or even touching any sort of bean" is unsourced, makes a remarkable claim of possibly religious or pseudoscientific import -- and is completely devoid of a "verify!" tag.
So i concluded that hrafn was not merely insisting on "verification", but rather that he was using hyper-verification demands -- which i called "hostile cite-tagging" or "hyper-tagging" -- with the goal of getting material removed from Wikipedia. This stategy is what Firefly has brilliatly termed his "negative WP:OWNERSHIP" of articles. He wants the articles *gone* and he will fight strategic battles on virtually every page he deems vulnerable to his tactics. If he loses a battle and every sentence on the page can be sourced by a reliable 3rd party, then he moves on and attacks another page.
He may believe he is working from a high moral ideal, ridding Wikipedia of half-baked "pseudoscience" and "fringe theory" articles and dodgy religious ideas and the like -- but the truth is that he is slowly dismantling dozens of WP:IMPERFECT pages at Wikipedia that touch on Christianity, New Thought, antiquated theories of psychology, or anecdotal recitations of unusual life-experiences by once-popular and long-deceased authors.
That's why it is taking me so long to assemble this AN/I report: i am unsure of how large a body of evidence i must bring before the admins to make an impression. I *already* know that one admin, dave souza, believes that my collection of evidence is a personal "attack page" against hrafn and also tried to get me blocked from Wikipedia because i had reacted with outrage to hrafn's outrageous (and later retracted) charge that i was running a "crusade" of deliberate copyright violation at Wikipedia.
I deliberately made my accumulation of evidence of hrafn's deconstruction of Wikipedia religion pages known, not to hold it over hrafn's head as a threat, but to allow others to help me formulate the presentation or knock holes in my premise if they can. Hrafn has not een threatened or deterred by my work in the least -- he is still prodding pages, hyper-tagging pages, reverting newly-sourced pages to unsoursed status by claiming the sources are no good, and AfDing religion-connected pages this very day.
As i have said before -- i am not a social Wikipedian. I am just here to have fun writing and copyediting. I have other committments on my time, as well -- i should be at work now instead of writing this -- and, to put it in plain speech, based on a few previous incidents in which i saw admins taking sides in matters of religion, i am not confident that this AN/I report will even receive a fair and impartial hearing.
Before beginning the AN/I report offline, i was seriously considering the creation of an alternative wiki for New Thought articles, because that topic seemed to be hrafn's chief target. I planned to ask for the temporary restoration of the deleted pages to my sandbox, where i could fix them up and then GNU-license them to my hypothetical alternate wiki, so that people could read all of the cool New Thought articles that had been stubbed, redirected, or deleted from Wikipedia.
Then i found out that New Thought was only the tip of the iceberg of hrafn's tag-and-delete campaign; his main targets were actually Christianity and creationism. I have a minor interest in the former but very little expertise (although some general intellectual interest) in the latter -- and the idea of adopting unknown dozens -- hundreds? -- of wiki pages that had been "hrafnated" was a bit daunting. So i decided to try out Wikipedia's own system of disppute resolution and complaint handling instead. That's why the AN/I page was created. My inexperience led me to post it to a MEDCAB page where it was promptly folded up and declared off-topic, so i let that be and went back to work on it. I am still working on it.
Please, let me finish gathering together what i can -- and please allow other editors to contribute to the work, because they may have encountered hrafn in other venues than where i have met him. And please, dave souza, do not pre-judge me or this matter, but let it play itself out. In fact, given that you have already tried to get me blocked and have written so much antagonistic material about my motives on my own talk page, i'd like to ask you to recuse yourself from acting in an admin capacity when this material is presented for discussion and possible remediation.
Also, as a final note to dave souza. I get the impression that you support what hrafn is doing and don't like me for objecting to it, else you would not accuse me of being on a personal "attack" against hrafn. If you can cool down a bit, i would like you to please re-read the "desired outcome" at my AN/I proposal page: I simply want hrafn to lay off (if he can; that is, if he is capable of self-restraint with respect to the topic of religion) and for the material he unilaterally redirected out of existence to be restored, with a list of pages provided so that other editors can sort this mess out.
Not everything he deleted does deserve to be on its own page -- but, to give just one example, there was material on Affirmative Prayer (in the religious New Thought sense of the term) that he effaced without merging when he blanked the Affirmative Prayer page and redirected it to Prayer -- and i think that the material should be looked at with an eye to having it form one of the co-equal sub-sections on the Prayer page.
It is that level of outcome i am aiming for. This is *not* about hrafn or how bad he is or what makes him tick. It is *not* about my trying to promote "pseudoscince" or "fringe theories" or religion above science. It is about a lot of work by a lot of dedicated editors that *described* those subjects being deleted from Wikipedia at hrafn's whim, without consensus -- and it is about getting admin permissions to restore the damaged articles that he has dismantled so that they can be read by the general public again, and improved as editors find time to volunteer on them -- or, as a last resort, GNU-licensed to appear at a different wiki where they would be archived in their largest-byte-count state, without further editing.
Sincerely, cat yronwode 64.142.90.33 ( talk) 06:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry to say, Dave, that you have missed the main thrust of my research. Your statement that "Hrafn's doing a valuable service in scrutinising articles, looking for better sources and removing incorrect or unsourced information" does not take into account the following points:
If this is "okay behaviour" with you, dave, please let me know. So far, it seems to me that you either fundamentally disagree with or have rationalized away every one of the above six points upon which my AN/I report will be based. If Wikipedia administrators think i am wrong about hrafn, that's okay -- but if adminstrators condone, approve of, or turn a blind eye to the sort of behaviour with which i am charging him, i need to have that information before i resume my collection of evidence. I have little time to waste on a Quixotic attempt to delimit what i sincerely believe is a topic-driven desertification of the Wikipedia Christianity and New Thought categories if administrators truly believe it to be "a valuable service" for an editor to use the methods outlined above to eliminate articles that describe spirtual, philosophical, mystical, and biographical subjects. catherine yronwode, not logged in on my own talk page, sorry. 64.142.90.33 ( talk) 19:46, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
When I asked Dave for advice on whether to have User_talk:Catherineyronwode/ANI-proposal WP:SPEEDYed as a WP:ATTACKPAGE, he suggested that he try to reason with her. I did not think that this would be productive, as I saw little indication that she would even listen to anybody in any way associated with me, but gave him the go-ahead to try. This attempt at reason has clearly failed, so I am offering this blunt rebuttal to her latest baseless personal attacks. As this is her user talk page, she of course has the option to simply revert this material, but I will be posting it to my own user talk as well.
I'm going to be unkind and select the most ludicrously inaccurate example from her attackpage:
- Example
- Affirmations
Affirmatons are a form of self-talk used by secular and religious New Thought adherents, and other groups as well. (Basic Venn-diagram explanation for those unfamiliar with New Thought belefs: Affirmations is the name of one of two super-sets of which Affirmative prayer is a sub-set. The other super-set of which Affirmative prayer is a sub-set is Prayer.)
The Affirmations page was said to have been deleted by hrafn without discussion. I know Affirmations one contained a mention of, and a link to, Affirmative prayer, because i once did some edits on it. The dab page Affirmation now contains no mention the meaning assoicated with Affirmations in New Thought religion or secular new Thought. Here is where the deletion occured:
# 16:03, 30 April 2008 Low Sea (Talk | contribs) (1,113 bytes) (removed terminology implying negative biases and removed erroneous use of supplicatory (which is contrary to affirmation))[an editor simply tried to remove the negative word hrafn had added] ["supplicatory" was a term added added by hrafn] # 16:05, 21 April 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (1,142 bytes) (rm self-link) [it became a "self-link" because hrafn had redirected the [[Affirmative prayer]] page out of existance] # 22:40, 19 February 2008 Vernon39 (Talk | contribs) (1,146 bytes) (add link to "Affirmation" article) [Affirmative prayer article existed at this point, hence the shrt defining sentence and the link from the dab page]
The problem is that Affirmations was never anything other than a redirect, as can be seen by anybody with the basic research skills to inspect its history.
While none of the other examples are quite so absurd (although Affirmative prayer comes close), the almost complete lack of difs means that that page has absolutely no probative value, and would be worthless in any WP:Dispute resolution. The page therefore serves no purpose other than as a WP:ATTACKPAGE.
"We appreciate the work you did on < name of page >, but it no longer meets Wikipedia standards because it lacks inline sourcing. The text you wrote may soon be deleted. Can you help by providing sources for what you wrote?"
Hrafn Talk Stalk 06:32, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Catherine, I'm disappointed in your response which shows a failure to understand how Wikipedia works and a failure to work within policies. You still seem to have this misconception that Hrafn has "lost" material to readers and new editors – it's all still there in the edit history and can be restored by anyone who cares to look. It's hidden because it's unsupported by sources, and our task is to provide material with verification, not any old rubbish that someone has conjured up.
Secondly, and more importantly, ASSUME GOOD FAITH means what it says – to work in a collegiate way you assume good faith, you don't decide to withhold good faith until persuaded otherwise. Your approach breaches the important policy of civility and leads to your disruptive and tendentious repetition of baseless accusations.
Finally, you really need to try to understand WP:NPOV – it's a core policy and means representing all notable viewpoints, giving due weight to majority views, on the basis of reliable sources. Everyone takes an interest in specific areas of knowledge, and everyone has their own point of view. Removal of unsourced speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is not "desertification", it's clearing away a tangle of rubbish giving an opportunity to find good sources and reinstate and improve any valid information.
You can learn a lot from Hrafn and can treat this as an opportunity to improve desperately poor articles on subjects that you evidently hold dear, or you can continue on this path of looking to create an unnecessary and time-wasting conflict. I urge you to take the former path. . . dave souza, talk 07:49, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, it sure didn't take long for reality to over-run this little tempest in a teapot regarding hrafn dave, Orangemarlin, and Jim. I refer you to Slim Virgin's talk page for her account of "Poetgate." There are other bits and pieces of this story scattered all over the AN/I and admin other discussion areas of Wikipedia by now, where the issue has been festering for about five days. And you know what? It has made this battle over the New Thought pages look like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The most gross thing about it is not that a British civil servant created dozens of fictitious accounts at Wikipedia and gained admin, beureaucrat, and checkuser status, but that, except for Slim Virgin, a majority of the admins discussing this scandal are asking that the whole mess be hushed up! Shades of the Catholic Church and the pederast priests.
Very strange doings in the Wikiverse.
cat yronwode Catherineyronwode ( talk) 05:40, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the note. AfDs frequently do not succeed, and if there has been significant change to the article in the course of the AfD , the administrator can start the process again from the beginning because the article has become very different. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 19:41, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your note, Cat. I wish you well with your efforts, it's a lot of work. These days I stay away from Hrafn as a waste of time but am happy to be kept informed. REad your very good Horse murders article. Ironic, isn't it? Julia Rossi ( talk) 23:51, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the note you left at my talk page. I read the pages you noted, which was extremely disheartening. cat yronwode Catherineyronwode ( talk) 02:39, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi there. I can't figure out how to edit that ANI section anymore with the collapsed section, so I'll leave you some information here.
Essentially, the RFC is somewhat like what you've laid out already. If you go to this page, you'll find, at the top of the page, a series of instructions and some links to some reading material. Take a look at some of the filed RFCs already active, and you should get the idea pretty quickly. The thing here is that you need to have tried and failed to resolve the dispute, and you need two people to certify they have done so before it will be certiifed. If that fails, you may have to consider taking the same route to arbitration, but an RFC is usually preferred, as an earlier stage of dispute resolution. Hope that helps. Tony Fox (arf!) 04:57, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
I have been watching your talk page for quite some time now. It is good to see you are back editing Wikipedia on a regular basis. I am against deletion in general. Feel free to alert me when one of those articles are nominated for deletion and I will vote against it. Danny Weintraub: Albion moonlight ( talk) 05:37, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
User Alternate Acct - 64.142.90.33
I've put this here and on your other page to avoid confusion. Hope this helps, Verbal chat 08:42, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
![]() |
CVU Anti-Vandalism Award | |
You have cast a spell of invigoration and protection upon wikipedia's WP:5, strengenthing WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL. For you have halted one very serious source of crude comments. Alas, it's too bad that such a cessation couldn't have invovled transformation rather the retirement of the editor. Firefly322 ( talk) 15:58, 12 September 2008 (UTC) |
"I think it's sad to see Hrafn go." - Firefly322 -- LOL -- Aunt Entropy ( talk) 15:30, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Could you please copy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Catherineyronwode/ANI-proposal to http://en.wikiversity.org/?title=Ethical_Management_of_the_English_Language_Wikipedia/Religion_articles,_Catherineyronwode%27s_investigation&action=edit&redlink=1 ? We just recently started a project there to find examples of unethical behavior and suggestions for improving that behavior. Unfortunately you seem to have run into a group that is sometimes referred to as "IDcab" or the "ID cabal" or the anti-Intelligent Design interest group. They support each other in trying to promote science in Wikipedia articles using methods that are inappropriate. http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=20294 is where I first heard about your difficulties. If there is anyone reading this that does not understand what Hrafn did wrong, then let me explain it - You are not supposed to go around deleting things just because they are not sourced. You are only supposed to delete unsourced or poorly sourced claims that you suspect of being false. It simply does not pass the smell test that everything he deleted/redirected was probably false. People need to edit subjects they know something about. Being ignorant is not a reason to delete things that can be sourced. WAS 4.250 ( talk) 17:22, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Gloating is generally considered poor form. {{ uw-own1}}. - Eldereft ( cont.) 17:25, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
A few comments on the above:
cat yronwode Catherineyronwode ( talk) 18:23, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
You bring up another side of the issue, Firefly, and it does deserve discussion. At the urging of Eldereft, and most particularly after an explanation of Eldereft's vague wording by Orangemarlin, i have removed from the Daylight Origins Society AfD page my mention that Hrafn, who had nominated the article for AfD, had retired while facing a MEDCAB, an AN/I, and a Wikiquette Alert -- because Eldereft thought that to do so was "gloating" on my part -- but on hrafn's talk page, i am still referred to as
Is it "humility" on my part to let those uncivil accusations stand -- or is it silent witness? I believe hrafn's final parting shot at the three of us serves as a memorial and a reminder: We know what the hrafn persona did here, and we know that the persona was retired when sufficient attention was focussed on its activities and its techniques. I'm strong enough to take the parting shot; as with all of hrafn's random fire, it's a miss. cat yronwode Catherineyronwode ( talk) 16:56, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
In September of 2008 my adorable wife, catherine yronwode, reflected on discussions which she and i were having about the social dynamics within hotly contested topic areas of Wikipedia. These pertained primarily to religious and esoteric topics, and to perceived cabals assembled to efface and bury substantive contributions to Wikipedia as part of an ongoing cultural struggle. She placed the text below, comparing Wikipedia to a MUD, on her User page:
She informed me that she'd written it, and i immediately began imagining what might be contained in it, based on the many hours that i enjoyed playing in and helping to create MUD environments. Once i'd read it, i was inspired to detail just how much commonality there was between Wikipedia and MUD communities. You may find the result below.
Jim62sch, to give one example, Gandhi was engaged in struggles for what he considered right his entire adult life, but nevertheless he was able to maintain ahimsa as the keynote of his efforts. I think his study of the Gita was key to his ability to fight without falling into viciousness:
He is the devotee who is jealous of none, who is a fount of mercy, who is without egotism, who is selfless, who treats alike cold and heat, happiness and misery, who is ever forgiving, who is always contented, whose resolutions are firm, who has dedicated mind and soul to God, who causes no dread, who is not afraid of others, who is free from exultation, sorrow and fear, who is pure, who is versed in action and yet remains unaffected by it, who renounces all fruit, good or bad, who treats friend and foe alike, who is untouched by respect or disrespect, who is not puffed up by praise, who does not go under when people speak ill of him who loves silence and solitude, who has a disciplined reason. Such devotion is inconsistent with the existence at the same time of strong attachments. [9]
I do not think the Gita is the only route, and personally I find Stoic philosophy preferable, but the Gita as a beautiful story is more easily accessible. Of course many editors will always think any means, no matter how vicious, justifies the editing results they aim at; but a philosopher can engage without animosity toward those who seem to block their way forward, and without fear of losing. It is not easy, but Wikipedia could use some editors with the characteristics described by Gandhi in this quote. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 21:58, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
cat and self-ref, thanks for your thoughtful essays and hard work during the recent kerffufle.
If you've not seen it before, MeatballWiki ( MeatBallWiki), a predecessor of Wikipedia, is a wiki about how people organize in online communities, and in particular, various forms of wiki's; and about the dynamics that happen in those systems. You might be interested in their article titled " GoodBye" that discusses what happens when users depart wiki communities. Their intro for users first arriving there from Wikipedia is on this page. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 20:56, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
As you may have noticed, Hrafn has posted a A statement from retirement at ANI. [10] I've also pointed out some of your errors in the preceding section. To resolve the important issues concerned, please accept that your statements and understanding of policy are incorrect, and completely withdraw your baseless accusations against Hrafn prepared at your ANI proposal, [11] posted at ANI and then moved to the now deleted RfC/Hrafn. Please make a statement to that effect in the section at ANI so that this dispute can end. Thanks for your understanding, I'm sure you're working for the good of Wikipedia and will, on reflection, be able to see where you've been mistaken. . dave souza, talk 09:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I see a lot of the usual faces are here, particularly Jim62sch and dave souza. Could we just drop the arguments already? Jim, don't you have some military people to bother? Kelly hi! 04:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi cat - I found a bunch of references for Affirmative prayer so I un-redirected it and added the footnotes. If you want to do some writing on that page, I bet you could make it a lot better. -- Linda ( talk) 06:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Cat, I suggest that everyone drop the Hrafn matter. It is somewhat moot right now, being that he is no longer editing. I am sure that he will return and then the matter of his style can be brought up again, if necessary. My point is that further discussion amounts to beating a dead horse and right now we all have better things to do. Please delete or close any outstanding matters, particularly the so-called "attack page". Madman ( talk) 21:39, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
You rock 24.184.206.83 ( talk) 01:27, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Seems like you've been gathering some criticism from some Wikipedia users over at ANI, just don't worry about it, shake the criticism off. I've seen some of your work; it's really good. Please continue to make good contributions to Wikipedia.
I wish you a good day.
The Man in the Rock ( talk) 02:52, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Cat, I must echo the previous posters' comments. You have made significant and excellent contributions to Wikipedia, particularly your and self-ref's essays on the meta-view.
Please continue to make your contributions to Wikipedia.
Madman (
talk)
18:16, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
I've raised an issue about you on ANI. I hope you will not misunderstand my intentions; I am merely trying to wrap my mind around what you've been doing. Feel free to comment, but try to be concise. - Zero1328 Talk? 14:42, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Looking back on it, I have no idea on what I was supposed to be talking about. I was quite tired when I wrote that, and I usually don't edit at that hour. I was feeling equally confused in the morning when I tried to add to what I meant... So it was indeed a bad misjudgement on my part. I think I said "wrap my mind around" to make sure I wasn't misunderstood, but I guess I failed there. I still feel muddled up when I try to think about what happened, so I'll just point to Wikipedia:Wikipedia essays as an idea to where to write stuff, and tell you that being concise is also fairly important as well. Being short, simple, and straight to the point will get more people to read, as the inverse turns people away. You're more familiar with Wikipedia so perhaps you watch over what User:Self-ref (your husband?) does, and pass this advice on. - Zero1328 Talk? 02:10, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I refactored my comment at an/i -it came out a little wrong. DGG ( talk) 16:33, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
I see you've been busy tagging unsourced articles. Odd considering your complaints against Hrafn. Did you change your mind? Aunt Entropy ( talk) 23:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree wholeheartedly - it is a concern I've had for a while after running into a number of them (seemingly being overused where notable wikipedians and NPOV would be a better option). I have left a note on the talk page with my proposal for a solution: Talk:Catherine Yronwode#Removing the COI banner. Hopefully, it should help resolve the issue. ( Emperor ( talk) 00:15, 24 September 2008 (UTC))
It's an unwarranted leap to think that you might be modeling yourself after what's his or her name. Anyway, since other editors won't this person or persons go, even though we have tried. I think there's something very fishy about that account. I suspect multiple editors were using it. If that's the case, then probably many of the editors who are complaining about legitimate cocerns with Hrafn's account are in fact editors who were operating his or her account. This isn't a sockpuppet or a meatpuppet, i don't think, I think it might be something as yet unnamed. -- Firefly322 ( talk) 00:22, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
You are my hero. Good job [14]! Thanks for your perseverance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by My dog rocky ( talk • contribs) 05:32, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
According to User talk:Boboroshi that user has invoked the right to disappear. To avoid confusion, perhaps you should change your user page to link 'Beloved' to user:Self-ref. — RHaworth ( Talk | contribs) 06:41, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Catherine, I suggest you blank this page and request deletion. Time has passed and it appears it is not going to be reworked into a non-attack page for Rfc or any other legitimate purpose. KillerChihuahua ?!? 10:50, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi Cat, I just caught up with your efforts and can hardly believe Hrafn has actually gor-ne. I feel it's important to keep your ANI page since it does serve a purpose and is a document in itself. My eyes popped to see the extent of Hrafn's efforts (since I am probably not allowed to call it "mania") and I felt somehow helped by finding it wasn't just my editing efforts that were systematically trashed. I didn't get much help from Madman all in all – after pointing to someone I had a bad experience with earlier who was a guard dog for a particular guru article – I had no oomph left for another aggressive type who liked stalking as well. I will have to read your records in chunks cause I lost track of the saga back there. Please accept hero status for your superhuman perseverance and for giving the pedia a breath of fresher air. Good work,
Julia Rossi (
talk)
09:46, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Wow, Catherine. All I can say is, WOW. I can sympathize with the challenge you have had trying to deal with Hrafn.
I have not experienced a person like Hrafn on Wikipedia up until now. His antics on Strengths and weaknesses of evolution are astounding. He apparently thinks HE makes the rules and is the sole arbiter of what is and is not allowed on Wikipedia. His latest: Evolution is the only valid science, therefore anything which questions it cannot be mentioned on Wikipedia, and any statement that ven hints at neutrality on the subject can be deleted on sight. dave souza is of course right there as his attack dog, defending his actions tooth and nail. WOW. WOW and WOW. And, I am not a Creationist, I will have you know. I believe in the science of evolution 100%. But I am not a fascist who thinks that all others must be censored if they don't agree with me. This kind of arrogance - which is apparently Wikipwdia policy - is astounding. 24.21.105.252 ( talk) 20:27, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Oh fun. Dave Souza and Orange Marlin are holding a mad tea party on my talk page. Catherineyronwode ( talk) 03:09, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Archiving. Catherineyronwode ( talk) 04:27, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi Catherine, it seems that you are not around right now, and the argument is over anyhow, but here is a link
[15] to a recent discussion on
WP:Wikiquette alerts. I am not sure that the link will still work after the discussion goes into the archives. Hope all is well.
Malcolm Schosha (
talk)
13:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I noticed that you recently tagged the Kate Atkinson Boehme article for non-notability. Why did you do that? She was a well-known and well-respected New Thought writer of her era and at least some of her books are still in print, 100 years after their first publication.
I think it is always better to add data to Wikipedia than to suggest taking an article away.
I suggest that in the future instead of tagging a stub about a long-deceased author as non-notabile that you do a simple amazon search on the author, pick up the status of any current in-print books and current ISBNs and add same to the author's article. That's what i just did. And then i removed your spurious non-notability tag.
cat yronwode Catherineyronwode ( talk) 04:39, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I also missed the merge with mediumship of channelling and consider it to be a terrible idea.
Do you know what the history was or what the old article was like?
Thanks. -- Lucyintheskywithdada ( talk) 23:22, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I noticed you made a few nice edits this fall to the article on Spiritualism. The article has fallen into a kind of crisis in the last week. An editor, without discussion, moved it to Spiritualism (religious movement). Another editor, who apparently is unable to distinguish between animism and spiritualism, grabbed the original Spiritualism title and has written an interesting article, as well as adding significant material to the now Spiritualism (religious movement) article. There is probably something worthy in all the new stuff, but it will take sorting out. Hoping that you'll take a look.-- Anthon.Eff ( talk) 23:49, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I reverted some original research from it that attacks your motives for something or the other but perhaps you should have a look at it. I t is on my watchlist but ...... : Albion moonlight ( talk) 12:54, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi Cat. need your help. Tags for deletion have been place on different articles pertaining to New Thought Divine Science has been deleted Religious Science is Tagged by the same person. He seem to have some sort of issue with religion or things that cannot be proved. Can you take a look maybe I'm wrong. Can you let me know. JGG59 ( talk) 02:34, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
An article that you have been involved in editing, Florence Scovel Shinn, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Florence Scovel Shinn. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? Lumos3 ( talk) 09:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure why you think the article is locked from editing, unless you didn't try to edit the page. It is semi-protected to prevent anonymous IPs and newly created accounts from editing due to continuing problems with vandalism, and such is noted at the top of the page when it is opened. There is no reason why you can't fix typos and punctuation problems. I will take this opportunity to suggest to you that it garners no favor and is bad form to write on a talk page of a high profile article (at least in terms of keeping on top of vandalism and inanities) that "obviously this is a contended and not very well written article". While there is often a great deal of debate regarding what should be added to the article or what should come out, there is no air of contentiousness amongst the editors who debate. Meanwhile, perhaps you didn't notice that the "cooking a snook at the law" comment is, in fact, a direct quote from this source and therefore cannot be changed. In any case, feel free to whip this article into shape and monitor it for the general rambling stupidities and occasional "Amy Winehouse is a CRACK ADDICT" additions and that constantly must be removed. Wildhartlivie ( talk) 02:38, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
--Cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 06:48, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
Hi - I was reviewing your subpage about the New Thought-related topics and fixed a few typos. Those corrections were reverted by an IP, for reasons I can't guess. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 04:50, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Your edit summary at the Michael Dowd article and associated talk page comment resembles WP:Wikistalking and shows misunderstanding of Wikipedia:Verification policy as well as a failure to assume good faith of Hrafn. This follows after you made accusations of libel and slander impinging on your employment, and then asserted that "The legal threat is real" after being reminded that making legal threats is blockable. [2] Far from withdrawing the threat or stopping editing, you're begun to escalate the dispute by preparing an ANI complaint against Hrafn. [3] His work in improving compliance with verification policy is useful and valid, and you do not seem to appreciate that Wikipedia is not for promoting or giving undue weight to fringe views. Hrafn has a good grasp of policy, and you should work with him to improve these articles so that they are fully cited and give due weight to majority views. However, before going any further you must explicitly withdraw your legal threat in accordance with Wikipedia:No legal threats. As that policy states that "Users who make legal threats will typically be blocked from editing indefinitely while legal threats are outstanding.", a report has been raised at WP:ANI#Catherineyronwode. .. . dave souza, talk 17:02, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Cat:
As you know from the above comment, there is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Catherineyronwode about some words you used in the long standing disagreement between yourself and User:Hrafn. I've read enough to understand why you might have some of the feelings you do about his previous actions. I see your work in progress at User_talk:Catherineyronwode/ANI-proposal and feel for you. I'd like to clarify what your meaning may have been, as I don't see the legal threat that others have stated. What I see is that you are concerned about some of the comments that another user have made about you, and whether it might interfere with your reputation and future freelance writing opportunities. I think this is a basic dispute between two users, and not anything more. If you would not mind, could you answer some questions for me to clarify to others what your intent may be?
Wikipedia:No_legal_threats says, among other things: "It is important to refrain from making comments that others may reasonably “understand” as legal threats, even if the comments are not intended in that fashion. For example, if you repeatedly assert that another editor's comments are "defamatory" or "libelous", that editor might interpret this as a threat to sue for defamation, even if it is not intended." Probably, when you said "Do not accuse your fellow editors of committing illegal acts. You have now gone past gratuitous personal insult and into libel and slander, impinging on my ability to secure employment as a freelance writer" The two legal terms libel and slander set off someone's legal detector.
And
"Rather than blocking immediately, administrators should seek to clarify the user's meaning and make sure that a mere misunderstanding is not involved." Several people have offered opinions as to what you must have meant. I thought I would just ask.
Questions:
Atom ( talk) 19:37, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Per your concerns there; I was trying to make such a reassurance because no evidence of this ganging up was there,as of my writing it. MEDCAB is there to help users solve content disputes- if there is a problem with conduct, there's nothing that can be done through MEDCAB. I'm trying to "weed out" the content concerns so that we can solve those, at least. If there is anything like this occurring, it would have to be dealt with through WP:ANI, WP:ARBCOM, etc. JeremyMcCracken ( talk) ( contribs) 15:45, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
An article that you have been involved in editing, Daylight Origins Society, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daylight Origins Society. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? Hrafn Talk Stalk 04:49, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi Catherine. I added an example to the Hrafn ANI list. Please feel free to edit or move it. -- Firefly322 ( talk) 13:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Firefly. 322. I don't have time to edit it tonight, but i will try to get to it soon. I will note that it is your contribution, but i will also edit it a bit to match the style of the rest of the document. Ditto for what Madman just added, too.
I've been off writing, and have returned to find an interesting display of bravado on the part of Orangemarlin, Jim, and Dave (above -- and Dave is an admin, no less). Obviously it's a hot-button issue. Obviously i absolutely do not like to see my talk page used as a place for others to post sarcasm, personal attacks, or trash-talk.
To all who posted here, i'd ike to make a comment. This will not apear on the AN/I report, but it will certainly explain what i am up to and why i have never considered hrafn an "enemy" of mine:
As i have explained repeatedly, it is difficult to demonstrate a pattern of editing that is disruptive if one has no links to pages that provide examples. That is why this material began as a log of my personal interactions with hrafn, and grew to include a log of the experiences of others which i had wtnessed first-hand, and now included material brought to the page which i did not witness first-hand.
I initially encountered hrafn in the New Thought Movement section earlier this year -- perhaps in April, perhaps as early as January. Due to my other duties, i only sporadically write and edit in Wikipedia, usually working for a month or two at a time, and then taking a several-month layoff except for drive-by copy-edits. In looking over the history of what had changed on my watchlist during my most recent wiki-break, i was suprised and dismayed at hrafn's level of incivility and bullying, especially toward inexperienced editors, against whom he was using selected portions of Wikipedia policy as if he were a bureucrat or at least an admin with a scowling, punishing mind-set.
He was scattershot fact-tagging, cutting text, effacing-by-redirect, and bullying editors at a number of New Thought pages, but he seemed quite uninformed on the topic of New Thought, seeming to treat it as if it were primarily either a religion or a form of pseudoscience, or both. His heated and abrasive comments hinted to me that he was on a mission against New Thought, but for the life of me i could not figure out why until i found his anti-Christianity and anti-creationist edits. Then it clicked: he had mistaken New Thought for a pseudoscientific or anti-scientism Christian religious denomination, and was attacking it as such, using "verifiability" tags to tear apart pages that dealt primarily with the anecdotal philosophical, empirical, or mystical beliefs of a group of late 19th and early 20th century authors. He was asking -- no, he was DEMANDING -- that the personal viewpoints of folks like Phineas Quimby (who believed that a sick person's mental state could influence his or her medical condition) or Wallace Wattles (who believed that a mental state of willed certainty of purpose could influence a person's business success and that skipping breakfast was a Good Idea) be "verified" by 3rd party reports or discarded from Wikipedia!
Now, it was okay with hrafn that Wikipedia claims that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "apparently" believed in fairies. I checked; hrafn has never insisted on having Conan Doyle's psychical beliefs in fairies be "verified" by a 3rd party under threat of any mention of same being discarded from Wikipedia.
Likewise, it was okay with hrafn that Wikipedia claims that Pythagoras taught that human contact with beans was a Bad Idea. The sentence "The Pythagorean code further restricted the diet of its followers, prohibiting the consumption or even touching any sort of bean" is unsourced, makes a remarkable claim of possibly religious or pseudoscientific import -- and is completely devoid of a "verify!" tag.
So i concluded that hrafn was not merely insisting on "verification", but rather that he was using hyper-verification demands -- which i called "hostile cite-tagging" or "hyper-tagging" -- with the goal of getting material removed from Wikipedia. This stategy is what Firefly has brilliatly termed his "negative WP:OWNERSHIP" of articles. He wants the articles *gone* and he will fight strategic battles on virtually every page he deems vulnerable to his tactics. If he loses a battle and every sentence on the page can be sourced by a reliable 3rd party, then he moves on and attacks another page.
He may believe he is working from a high moral ideal, ridding Wikipedia of half-baked "pseudoscience" and "fringe theory" articles and dodgy religious ideas and the like -- but the truth is that he is slowly dismantling dozens of WP:IMPERFECT pages at Wikipedia that touch on Christianity, New Thought, antiquated theories of psychology, or anecdotal recitations of unusual life-experiences by once-popular and long-deceased authors.
That's why it is taking me so long to assemble this AN/I report: i am unsure of how large a body of evidence i must bring before the admins to make an impression. I *already* know that one admin, dave souza, believes that my collection of evidence is a personal "attack page" against hrafn and also tried to get me blocked from Wikipedia because i had reacted with outrage to hrafn's outrageous (and later retracted) charge that i was running a "crusade" of deliberate copyright violation at Wikipedia.
I deliberately made my accumulation of evidence of hrafn's deconstruction of Wikipedia religion pages known, not to hold it over hrafn's head as a threat, but to allow others to help me formulate the presentation or knock holes in my premise if they can. Hrafn has not een threatened or deterred by my work in the least -- he is still prodding pages, hyper-tagging pages, reverting newly-sourced pages to unsoursed status by claiming the sources are no good, and AfDing religion-connected pages this very day.
As i have said before -- i am not a social Wikipedian. I am just here to have fun writing and copyediting. I have other committments on my time, as well -- i should be at work now instead of writing this -- and, to put it in plain speech, based on a few previous incidents in which i saw admins taking sides in matters of religion, i am not confident that this AN/I report will even receive a fair and impartial hearing.
Before beginning the AN/I report offline, i was seriously considering the creation of an alternative wiki for New Thought articles, because that topic seemed to be hrafn's chief target. I planned to ask for the temporary restoration of the deleted pages to my sandbox, where i could fix them up and then GNU-license them to my hypothetical alternate wiki, so that people could read all of the cool New Thought articles that had been stubbed, redirected, or deleted from Wikipedia.
Then i found out that New Thought was only the tip of the iceberg of hrafn's tag-and-delete campaign; his main targets were actually Christianity and creationism. I have a minor interest in the former but very little expertise (although some general intellectual interest) in the latter -- and the idea of adopting unknown dozens -- hundreds? -- of wiki pages that had been "hrafnated" was a bit daunting. So i decided to try out Wikipedia's own system of disppute resolution and complaint handling instead. That's why the AN/I page was created. My inexperience led me to post it to a MEDCAB page where it was promptly folded up and declared off-topic, so i let that be and went back to work on it. I am still working on it.
Please, let me finish gathering together what i can -- and please allow other editors to contribute to the work, because they may have encountered hrafn in other venues than where i have met him. And please, dave souza, do not pre-judge me or this matter, but let it play itself out. In fact, given that you have already tried to get me blocked and have written so much antagonistic material about my motives on my own talk page, i'd like to ask you to recuse yourself from acting in an admin capacity when this material is presented for discussion and possible remediation.
Also, as a final note to dave souza. I get the impression that you support what hrafn is doing and don't like me for objecting to it, else you would not accuse me of being on a personal "attack" against hrafn. If you can cool down a bit, i would like you to please re-read the "desired outcome" at my AN/I proposal page: I simply want hrafn to lay off (if he can; that is, if he is capable of self-restraint with respect to the topic of religion) and for the material he unilaterally redirected out of existence to be restored, with a list of pages provided so that other editors can sort this mess out.
Not everything he deleted does deserve to be on its own page -- but, to give just one example, there was material on Affirmative Prayer (in the religious New Thought sense of the term) that he effaced without merging when he blanked the Affirmative Prayer page and redirected it to Prayer -- and i think that the material should be looked at with an eye to having it form one of the co-equal sub-sections on the Prayer page.
It is that level of outcome i am aiming for. This is *not* about hrafn or how bad he is or what makes him tick. It is *not* about my trying to promote "pseudoscince" or "fringe theories" or religion above science. It is about a lot of work by a lot of dedicated editors that *described* those subjects being deleted from Wikipedia at hrafn's whim, without consensus -- and it is about getting admin permissions to restore the damaged articles that he has dismantled so that they can be read by the general public again, and improved as editors find time to volunteer on them -- or, as a last resort, GNU-licensed to appear at a different wiki where they would be archived in their largest-byte-count state, without further editing.
Sincerely, cat yronwode 64.142.90.33 ( talk) 06:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry to say, Dave, that you have missed the main thrust of my research. Your statement that "Hrafn's doing a valuable service in scrutinising articles, looking for better sources and removing incorrect or unsourced information" does not take into account the following points:
If this is "okay behaviour" with you, dave, please let me know. So far, it seems to me that you either fundamentally disagree with or have rationalized away every one of the above six points upon which my AN/I report will be based. If Wikipedia administrators think i am wrong about hrafn, that's okay -- but if adminstrators condone, approve of, or turn a blind eye to the sort of behaviour with which i am charging him, i need to have that information before i resume my collection of evidence. I have little time to waste on a Quixotic attempt to delimit what i sincerely believe is a topic-driven desertification of the Wikipedia Christianity and New Thought categories if administrators truly believe it to be "a valuable service" for an editor to use the methods outlined above to eliminate articles that describe spirtual, philosophical, mystical, and biographical subjects. catherine yronwode, not logged in on my own talk page, sorry. 64.142.90.33 ( talk) 19:46, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
When I asked Dave for advice on whether to have User_talk:Catherineyronwode/ANI-proposal WP:SPEEDYed as a WP:ATTACKPAGE, he suggested that he try to reason with her. I did not think that this would be productive, as I saw little indication that she would even listen to anybody in any way associated with me, but gave him the go-ahead to try. This attempt at reason has clearly failed, so I am offering this blunt rebuttal to her latest baseless personal attacks. As this is her user talk page, she of course has the option to simply revert this material, but I will be posting it to my own user talk as well.
I'm going to be unkind and select the most ludicrously inaccurate example from her attackpage:
- Example
- Affirmations
Affirmatons are a form of self-talk used by secular and religious New Thought adherents, and other groups as well. (Basic Venn-diagram explanation for those unfamiliar with New Thought belefs: Affirmations is the name of one of two super-sets of which Affirmative prayer is a sub-set. The other super-set of which Affirmative prayer is a sub-set is Prayer.)
The Affirmations page was said to have been deleted by hrafn without discussion. I know Affirmations one contained a mention of, and a link to, Affirmative prayer, because i once did some edits on it. The dab page Affirmation now contains no mention the meaning assoicated with Affirmations in New Thought religion or secular new Thought. Here is where the deletion occured:
# 16:03, 30 April 2008 Low Sea (Talk | contribs) (1,113 bytes) (removed terminology implying negative biases and removed erroneous use of supplicatory (which is contrary to affirmation))[an editor simply tried to remove the negative word hrafn had added] ["supplicatory" was a term added added by hrafn] # 16:05, 21 April 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (1,142 bytes) (rm self-link) [it became a "self-link" because hrafn had redirected the [[Affirmative prayer]] page out of existance] # 22:40, 19 February 2008 Vernon39 (Talk | contribs) (1,146 bytes) (add link to "Affirmation" article) [Affirmative prayer article existed at this point, hence the shrt defining sentence and the link from the dab page]
The problem is that Affirmations was never anything other than a redirect, as can be seen by anybody with the basic research skills to inspect its history.
While none of the other examples are quite so absurd (although Affirmative prayer comes close), the almost complete lack of difs means that that page has absolutely no probative value, and would be worthless in any WP:Dispute resolution. The page therefore serves no purpose other than as a WP:ATTACKPAGE.
"We appreciate the work you did on < name of page >, but it no longer meets Wikipedia standards because it lacks inline sourcing. The text you wrote may soon be deleted. Can you help by providing sources for what you wrote?"
Hrafn Talk Stalk 06:32, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Catherine, I'm disappointed in your response which shows a failure to understand how Wikipedia works and a failure to work within policies. You still seem to have this misconception that Hrafn has "lost" material to readers and new editors – it's all still there in the edit history and can be restored by anyone who cares to look. It's hidden because it's unsupported by sources, and our task is to provide material with verification, not any old rubbish that someone has conjured up.
Secondly, and more importantly, ASSUME GOOD FAITH means what it says – to work in a collegiate way you assume good faith, you don't decide to withhold good faith until persuaded otherwise. Your approach breaches the important policy of civility and leads to your disruptive and tendentious repetition of baseless accusations.
Finally, you really need to try to understand WP:NPOV – it's a core policy and means representing all notable viewpoints, giving due weight to majority views, on the basis of reliable sources. Everyone takes an interest in specific areas of knowledge, and everyone has their own point of view. Removal of unsourced speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is not "desertification", it's clearing away a tangle of rubbish giving an opportunity to find good sources and reinstate and improve any valid information.
You can learn a lot from Hrafn and can treat this as an opportunity to improve desperately poor articles on subjects that you evidently hold dear, or you can continue on this path of looking to create an unnecessary and time-wasting conflict. I urge you to take the former path. . . dave souza, talk 07:49, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, it sure didn't take long for reality to over-run this little tempest in a teapot regarding hrafn dave, Orangemarlin, and Jim. I refer you to Slim Virgin's talk page for her account of "Poetgate." There are other bits and pieces of this story scattered all over the AN/I and admin other discussion areas of Wikipedia by now, where the issue has been festering for about five days. And you know what? It has made this battle over the New Thought pages look like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The most gross thing about it is not that a British civil servant created dozens of fictitious accounts at Wikipedia and gained admin, beureaucrat, and checkuser status, but that, except for Slim Virgin, a majority of the admins discussing this scandal are asking that the whole mess be hushed up! Shades of the Catholic Church and the pederast priests.
Very strange doings in the Wikiverse.
cat yronwode Catherineyronwode ( talk) 05:40, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the note. AfDs frequently do not succeed, and if there has been significant change to the article in the course of the AfD , the administrator can start the process again from the beginning because the article has become very different. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 19:41, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your note, Cat. I wish you well with your efforts, it's a lot of work. These days I stay away from Hrafn as a waste of time but am happy to be kept informed. REad your very good Horse murders article. Ironic, isn't it? Julia Rossi ( talk) 23:51, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the note you left at my talk page. I read the pages you noted, which was extremely disheartening. cat yronwode Catherineyronwode ( talk) 02:39, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi there. I can't figure out how to edit that ANI section anymore with the collapsed section, so I'll leave you some information here.
Essentially, the RFC is somewhat like what you've laid out already. If you go to this page, you'll find, at the top of the page, a series of instructions and some links to some reading material. Take a look at some of the filed RFCs already active, and you should get the idea pretty quickly. The thing here is that you need to have tried and failed to resolve the dispute, and you need two people to certify they have done so before it will be certiifed. If that fails, you may have to consider taking the same route to arbitration, but an RFC is usually preferred, as an earlier stage of dispute resolution. Hope that helps. Tony Fox (arf!) 04:57, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
I have been watching your talk page for quite some time now. It is good to see you are back editing Wikipedia on a regular basis. I am against deletion in general. Feel free to alert me when one of those articles are nominated for deletion and I will vote against it. Danny Weintraub: Albion moonlight ( talk) 05:37, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
User Alternate Acct - 64.142.90.33
I've put this here and on your other page to avoid confusion. Hope this helps, Verbal chat 08:42, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
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CVU Anti-Vandalism Award | |
You have cast a spell of invigoration and protection upon wikipedia's WP:5, strengenthing WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL. For you have halted one very serious source of crude comments. Alas, it's too bad that such a cessation couldn't have invovled transformation rather the retirement of the editor. Firefly322 ( talk) 15:58, 12 September 2008 (UTC) |
"I think it's sad to see Hrafn go." - Firefly322 -- LOL -- Aunt Entropy ( talk) 15:30, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Could you please copy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Catherineyronwode/ANI-proposal to http://en.wikiversity.org/?title=Ethical_Management_of_the_English_Language_Wikipedia/Religion_articles,_Catherineyronwode%27s_investigation&action=edit&redlink=1 ? We just recently started a project there to find examples of unethical behavior and suggestions for improving that behavior. Unfortunately you seem to have run into a group that is sometimes referred to as "IDcab" or the "ID cabal" or the anti-Intelligent Design interest group. They support each other in trying to promote science in Wikipedia articles using methods that are inappropriate. http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=20294 is where I first heard about your difficulties. If there is anyone reading this that does not understand what Hrafn did wrong, then let me explain it - You are not supposed to go around deleting things just because they are not sourced. You are only supposed to delete unsourced or poorly sourced claims that you suspect of being false. It simply does not pass the smell test that everything he deleted/redirected was probably false. People need to edit subjects they know something about. Being ignorant is not a reason to delete things that can be sourced. WAS 4.250 ( talk) 17:22, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Gloating is generally considered poor form. {{ uw-own1}}. - Eldereft ( cont.) 17:25, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
A few comments on the above:
cat yronwode Catherineyronwode ( talk) 18:23, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
You bring up another side of the issue, Firefly, and it does deserve discussion. At the urging of Eldereft, and most particularly after an explanation of Eldereft's vague wording by Orangemarlin, i have removed from the Daylight Origins Society AfD page my mention that Hrafn, who had nominated the article for AfD, had retired while facing a MEDCAB, an AN/I, and a Wikiquette Alert -- because Eldereft thought that to do so was "gloating" on my part -- but on hrafn's talk page, i am still referred to as
Is it "humility" on my part to let those uncivil accusations stand -- or is it silent witness? I believe hrafn's final parting shot at the three of us serves as a memorial and a reminder: We know what the hrafn persona did here, and we know that the persona was retired when sufficient attention was focussed on its activities and its techniques. I'm strong enough to take the parting shot; as with all of hrafn's random fire, it's a miss. cat yronwode Catherineyronwode ( talk) 16:56, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
In September of 2008 my adorable wife, catherine yronwode, reflected on discussions which she and i were having about the social dynamics within hotly contested topic areas of Wikipedia. These pertained primarily to religious and esoteric topics, and to perceived cabals assembled to efface and bury substantive contributions to Wikipedia as part of an ongoing cultural struggle. She placed the text below, comparing Wikipedia to a MUD, on her User page:
She informed me that she'd written it, and i immediately began imagining what might be contained in it, based on the many hours that i enjoyed playing in and helping to create MUD environments. Once i'd read it, i was inspired to detail just how much commonality there was between Wikipedia and MUD communities. You may find the result below.
Jim62sch, to give one example, Gandhi was engaged in struggles for what he considered right his entire adult life, but nevertheless he was able to maintain ahimsa as the keynote of his efforts. I think his study of the Gita was key to his ability to fight without falling into viciousness:
He is the devotee who is jealous of none, who is a fount of mercy, who is without egotism, who is selfless, who treats alike cold and heat, happiness and misery, who is ever forgiving, who is always contented, whose resolutions are firm, who has dedicated mind and soul to God, who causes no dread, who is not afraid of others, who is free from exultation, sorrow and fear, who is pure, who is versed in action and yet remains unaffected by it, who renounces all fruit, good or bad, who treats friend and foe alike, who is untouched by respect or disrespect, who is not puffed up by praise, who does not go under when people speak ill of him who loves silence and solitude, who has a disciplined reason. Such devotion is inconsistent with the existence at the same time of strong attachments. [9]
I do not think the Gita is the only route, and personally I find Stoic philosophy preferable, but the Gita as a beautiful story is more easily accessible. Of course many editors will always think any means, no matter how vicious, justifies the editing results they aim at; but a philosopher can engage without animosity toward those who seem to block their way forward, and without fear of losing. It is not easy, but Wikipedia could use some editors with the characteristics described by Gandhi in this quote. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 21:58, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
cat and self-ref, thanks for your thoughtful essays and hard work during the recent kerffufle.
If you've not seen it before, MeatballWiki ( MeatBallWiki), a predecessor of Wikipedia, is a wiki about how people organize in online communities, and in particular, various forms of wiki's; and about the dynamics that happen in those systems. You might be interested in their article titled " GoodBye" that discusses what happens when users depart wiki communities. Their intro for users first arriving there from Wikipedia is on this page. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 20:56, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
As you may have noticed, Hrafn has posted a A statement from retirement at ANI. [10] I've also pointed out some of your errors in the preceding section. To resolve the important issues concerned, please accept that your statements and understanding of policy are incorrect, and completely withdraw your baseless accusations against Hrafn prepared at your ANI proposal, [11] posted at ANI and then moved to the now deleted RfC/Hrafn. Please make a statement to that effect in the section at ANI so that this dispute can end. Thanks for your understanding, I'm sure you're working for the good of Wikipedia and will, on reflection, be able to see where you've been mistaken. . dave souza, talk 09:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I see a lot of the usual faces are here, particularly Jim62sch and dave souza. Could we just drop the arguments already? Jim, don't you have some military people to bother? Kelly hi! 04:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi cat - I found a bunch of references for Affirmative prayer so I un-redirected it and added the footnotes. If you want to do some writing on that page, I bet you could make it a lot better. -- Linda ( talk) 06:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Cat, I suggest that everyone drop the Hrafn matter. It is somewhat moot right now, being that he is no longer editing. I am sure that he will return and then the matter of his style can be brought up again, if necessary. My point is that further discussion amounts to beating a dead horse and right now we all have better things to do. Please delete or close any outstanding matters, particularly the so-called "attack page". Madman ( talk) 21:39, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
You rock 24.184.206.83 ( talk) 01:27, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Seems like you've been gathering some criticism from some Wikipedia users over at ANI, just don't worry about it, shake the criticism off. I've seen some of your work; it's really good. Please continue to make good contributions to Wikipedia.
I wish you a good day.
The Man in the Rock ( talk) 02:52, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Cat, I must echo the previous posters' comments. You have made significant and excellent contributions to Wikipedia, particularly your and self-ref's essays on the meta-view.
Please continue to make your contributions to Wikipedia.
Madman (
talk)
18:16, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
I've raised an issue about you on ANI. I hope you will not misunderstand my intentions; I am merely trying to wrap my mind around what you've been doing. Feel free to comment, but try to be concise. - Zero1328 Talk? 14:42, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Looking back on it, I have no idea on what I was supposed to be talking about. I was quite tired when I wrote that, and I usually don't edit at that hour. I was feeling equally confused in the morning when I tried to add to what I meant... So it was indeed a bad misjudgement on my part. I think I said "wrap my mind around" to make sure I wasn't misunderstood, but I guess I failed there. I still feel muddled up when I try to think about what happened, so I'll just point to Wikipedia:Wikipedia essays as an idea to where to write stuff, and tell you that being concise is also fairly important as well. Being short, simple, and straight to the point will get more people to read, as the inverse turns people away. You're more familiar with Wikipedia so perhaps you watch over what User:Self-ref (your husband?) does, and pass this advice on. - Zero1328 Talk? 02:10, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I refactored my comment at an/i -it came out a little wrong. DGG ( talk) 16:33, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
I see you've been busy tagging unsourced articles. Odd considering your complaints against Hrafn. Did you change your mind? Aunt Entropy ( talk) 23:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree wholeheartedly - it is a concern I've had for a while after running into a number of them (seemingly being overused where notable wikipedians and NPOV would be a better option). I have left a note on the talk page with my proposal for a solution: Talk:Catherine Yronwode#Removing the COI banner. Hopefully, it should help resolve the issue. ( Emperor ( talk) 00:15, 24 September 2008 (UTC))
It's an unwarranted leap to think that you might be modeling yourself after what's his or her name. Anyway, since other editors won't this person or persons go, even though we have tried. I think there's something very fishy about that account. I suspect multiple editors were using it. If that's the case, then probably many of the editors who are complaining about legitimate cocerns with Hrafn's account are in fact editors who were operating his or her account. This isn't a sockpuppet or a meatpuppet, i don't think, I think it might be something as yet unnamed. -- Firefly322 ( talk) 00:22, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
You are my hero. Good job [14]! Thanks for your perseverance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by My dog rocky ( talk • contribs) 05:32, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
According to User talk:Boboroshi that user has invoked the right to disappear. To avoid confusion, perhaps you should change your user page to link 'Beloved' to user:Self-ref. — RHaworth ( Talk | contribs) 06:41, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Catherine, I suggest you blank this page and request deletion. Time has passed and it appears it is not going to be reworked into a non-attack page for Rfc or any other legitimate purpose. KillerChihuahua ?!? 10:50, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi Cat, I just caught up with your efforts and can hardly believe Hrafn has actually gor-ne. I feel it's important to keep your ANI page since it does serve a purpose and is a document in itself. My eyes popped to see the extent of Hrafn's efforts (since I am probably not allowed to call it "mania") and I felt somehow helped by finding it wasn't just my editing efforts that were systematically trashed. I didn't get much help from Madman all in all – after pointing to someone I had a bad experience with earlier who was a guard dog for a particular guru article – I had no oomph left for another aggressive type who liked stalking as well. I will have to read your records in chunks cause I lost track of the saga back there. Please accept hero status for your superhuman perseverance and for giving the pedia a breath of fresher air. Good work,
Julia Rossi (
talk)
09:46, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Wow, Catherine. All I can say is, WOW. I can sympathize with the challenge you have had trying to deal with Hrafn.
I have not experienced a person like Hrafn on Wikipedia up until now. His antics on Strengths and weaknesses of evolution are astounding. He apparently thinks HE makes the rules and is the sole arbiter of what is and is not allowed on Wikipedia. His latest: Evolution is the only valid science, therefore anything which questions it cannot be mentioned on Wikipedia, and any statement that ven hints at neutrality on the subject can be deleted on sight. dave souza is of course right there as his attack dog, defending his actions tooth and nail. WOW. WOW and WOW. And, I am not a Creationist, I will have you know. I believe in the science of evolution 100%. But I am not a fascist who thinks that all others must be censored if they don't agree with me. This kind of arrogance - which is apparently Wikipwdia policy - is astounding. 24.21.105.252 ( talk) 20:27, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Oh fun. Dave Souza and Orange Marlin are holding a mad tea party on my talk page. Catherineyronwode ( talk) 03:09, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Archiving. Catherineyronwode ( talk) 04:27, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi Catherine, it seems that you are not around right now, and the argument is over anyhow, but here is a link
[15] to a recent discussion on
WP:Wikiquette alerts. I am not sure that the link will still work after the discussion goes into the archives. Hope all is well.
Malcolm Schosha (
talk)
13:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)