Hello, Probrooks, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:
You may also want to take the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit The Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.
Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or to ask for help on your talk page, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! FreeKnowledgeCreator ( talk) 08:53, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
Hi Probrooks, I can see that you are somewhat new here and you apear to have made a number of small but valuable improvments to articles. Good work, and thank you for your help. I really wanted to urge you to take some time to become familiar with some of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Becoming familiar with these guidelines will make you a more productive editor. If you make edits that show some degree of unfamiliarity with these rules you might find yourself subject to greater scruitny within our community.
In particular please take a look at our Notability guidelines, which help us decide which topics are suitable for inclusion in wikipedia, Reliable Sources guidelines which help us select content suitable for sourcing, and specifically WP:MEDRS which should be carefully read if you intend to edit articles about products which make health or wellbeing claims. You might also want to read WP:FRINGE which suggests ways that we might cover topics that are on the fringes of science and culure. -- Salimfadhley ( talk) 00:47, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
Hi Probbrooks - I can see that you appear to be continuing a debate over at Talk:Bach_flower_remedies which maeans that you probably didn't yet follow my previous advice. Let me put this in somewhat starker terms: Many wikipedia editors will interpret your current behsvior as 'disruptive editing', in particular use of talk pages to promote a fringe POV or conduct advocacy is a practice that is generally frowned upon. I know that you feel that you are correcting other people's misunderstndings of a subject that you know well but people simply won't see it that way.
The advice I'd give you for now is to cool it. Think for ten minutes before crafting your next response. Instead of writing ten paragraphs, write one short paragraph that gets to the point more quiickly. Also learn how to use Wikipedia's threaded discussions (because you are messsing up the talk pages and that's another way to irritate people). ou
The consequence of not taking this advice will be to draw further attention to yourself. You might find that the next editors you interact with are less inclined to chat with you but instead seek to restrict your use of the site. -- Salimfadhley ( talk) 12:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
You mentioned some sympathy for Larry Sanger's reasons for quitting Wikipedia to found the rival Citizendium. Actually many of your opinions seem to allign better with Citizendium than Wikipedia.
CZ's policies express somewhat different concepts of neutrality and notability. [1]. In particular, one aspect you might like is that CZ specifically solicits "expert opinion" rather than relying (as we do on WP) on reliable sources. This means that articles need not be constrained by what other publishers have previously seen fit to write about. Experts such as yourself have a broader remit to write what they know.
You may also like to read Wikipedia's reasons for not adopting the same policies: WP:CITIZENDIUM. -- Salimfadhley ( talk) 00:43, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
Oh, look, here is another study I found!
http://chp.sagepub.com/content/12/1/3.abstract
Just curious, do you have a source for that Nikola Tesla quote you mentioned earlier? -- Salimfadhley ( talk) 06:18, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
You currently appear to be engaged in an
edit war according to the reverts you have made on
Isolation tank. Users are expected to
collaborate with others, to avoid editing
disruptively, and to
try to reach a consensus rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.
Please be particularly aware that Wikipedia's policy on edit warring states:
If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes; work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing. Alexbrn ( talk) 02:07, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
Please carefully read this information:
The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.
Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you that sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.Alexbrn ( talk) 02:09, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
If you like please read User:Jytdog#NPOV_part_1:_secondary_sources; I think it will help you understand how to edit here. If you have any questions about that, you can ask me here, if you like. Jytdog ( talk) 23:03, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
Also, about this comment, you are not understanding WP:CONSENSUS. Consensus includes all the past consensus that has been formed by the community over the years. Consensus findings within the community that address fundamental issues (ones that are raised over and over) are what we call the " policies and guidelines" (PAG). PAG were not imposed from on high -- the community itself established them over the past 15 years. They form the foundation for everything that happens here. And yes PAG can change with time - slowly and with difficulty. Local consensus at an article (which cannot trump the global consensus expressed in PAG) can change with time too - as new sources emerge or different people come along who agree to apply PAG differently -- but all those local discussions must be grounded in PAG - in other words, in the deeper consensus of the community. Without that foundation, this place would be a wild west - a Mad Max world that is all about power and game-playing. That is not how it really is. How it really is, is that editors who are what we call clueful (please read that, it is very short) - are listened to in discussions, and the edits they make stick and are not reverted -- exactly because what they say and do complies with PAG. That is how this place works. Jytdog ( talk) 23:27, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
@ Probrooks: I totally agree with you that the article is presenting a level of certainty that the CDC report does not convey. Also it supports the idea that Morgellons people are delusional by citing the Atlantic which does not by any means count as WP:MEDRS and it says there that "some people have linked Morgellons "to another illness viewed skeptically by most doctors, chronic Lyme disease"." sourced to the Atlantic, of all places, when in fact there is on going research by many scientists into a link with Bovine Digital Dermatitis and many peer reviewed high quality medical cites they could give for that. Not WP:MEDRS but neither is the Atlantic, if it deserves to be mentioned, as surely it does, it should be cited properly. I think the article is very biased.
I have been warned by @ Jytdog: that they will take me to Arbitration Enforcement for a topic ban if I continue to talk about this on the talk page which is why I stopped talking there. I don't think they have a case, because the discretionary sanctions are for pseudo science and fringe science, and the recent work on Morgellons is neither. But I've experienced these sanction discussions before and the admins judging them are not familiar with details of topics at all, no way that they would check cites and they'd be easily convinced that it is fringe or pseudoscience. And I must not be banned again because of a project I want to publicize on wikipedia for comment to help banned editors. So I am out of this unless @ Jytdog: withdraws the threat (their own words) which they have also explained on my talk page they take very seriously. So I just can't risk it. But you have all my moral support here! Robert Walker ( talk) 12:31, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
Sorry about this. It's not that I lack conviction though, it's just that I'm scared to speak my mind here, because I don't want to be taken to AE, especially having been through several stressful previous events. But I should have just stopped. After all, I made my point on the talk page already as you say :). And we have also rather hijacked your talk page and sorry about that! Robert Walker ( talk) 13:38, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
@ Probrooks: I just realized that as a newbie editor, you won't understand the context to all this discussion, and as someone who is thinking of possibly trying to get the article "sorted out" in the future, it's good that yuou know the background.
The thing is that Jytdog warned me that there are discretionary sanctions in place for Medicine on pseudoscience. This is to prevent cranks from wasting the time of other editors. If the other editors say they are being bothered by a crank, the admins will act quickly to ban them from the talk page. You might think that they would do an investigation, read the cites and check for themselves that it is pseudoscience. But no, that's not how justice is done here, instead it is done as a community similar to the editing process. The admins will look at my edit history and see that I have contributed to the talk page several times in long conversations with other editors opposed to me. They will also ask the editors if what I'm talking about is pseudoscience. Obviously @ Jytdog: will say it is, as will several other editors. I'd argue in the same discussion that it is genuine science. But you do get psuedoscience or dubious science that gets accepted in peer reviewed journals sometimes (e.g. Cold fusion, or Water memory), so it won't be enough to show that it is published in peer reviewed medical journals. And the admins won't read the articles. The yalso judge very swiftly - if the case seems a clear one to them, they will give their decisions in minutes. So if most of the editors on the talk page say it is pseudoscience, the admins will accept that as the community decision and ban me.
I've had experience of this in the past (not of discretionary sanctions but of community justice here) and know that it works that way and I don't have a lot of confidence in the community sourced justice system on wikipedia as a result. It's not the admins that are the problem in my view, it's the system as a whole, that it can lead occasionally to miscarriages of justice. And that's why I don't want to risk being taken to AE while at the same time being certain myself from reading all the papers carefully that it is genuine science. And that's why I can't answer @ Jytdog:'s points in this discussion because to continue to do so after the clear warnings he has given would be enough reason for admins to ban me. That's also why he is so confident in his ability to ban me, which comes over to you as arrogance.
Hope this helps you understand the situation. If you ever get a warning of discretionary sanctions, or someone says they are planning to take you to arbitration on some other matter, don't ignore it. Though ordinary editors can spend years on wikipedia without ever encountering this, I did myself. Robert Walker ( talk) 08:07, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Sorry about that. I've copied it over to my talk page and replied here. Robert Walker ( talk) 13:08, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
n/t - 165.234.252.11 ( talk) 16:05, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
The mission of WP is to summarize accepted knowledge. This is described in WP:NOTEVERYTHING.
Wikipedia is also "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Can edit. Editing is privilege extended to everyone. But there are strings attached. In exchange for the privilege of editing, WP requires people to follow the policies and guidelines, which include the mission. This is part of the Terms of Use, which every editor agrees to, each time they save an edit. (The time you edit, read the text that is just above the "save" button).
However, a lot of people feel passionately about things, and they come here to write about whatever it is they are passionate about and they don't take that deal into consideration - they don't stop, slow down, and actually try to understand the policies and guidelines and how we operate here.
One kind of such editors, is people who feel passionately about some health thing. There are many, many people out there who strongly believe "X is so" and they come to Wikipedia and want to make Wikipedia says "X is so". This has happened ever since WP existed.
As a result, the community formed the WP:PSCI policy as part of NPOV, and then created the FRINGE guideline to help people understand and work with PSCI. The community did this.
The key thing I hope you understand is that WP probably would be a lot more neutral if there were not constant promotional pressure for "X is so". That is where the problems arise.
For instance what MEDRS sources say about Morgellons is that it is poorly understood but appears to be a form of delusional parasitosis. Morgellons advocates hate that and try to make WP say it is an actual thing. Neutral editors dig in and say "no it is a delusion" and we end up with content that sometimes is more certain than things really are. The neutral editors are way, way closer to expressing "accepted knowledge" than the Morgellons advocates are, so the community lets that be. Nobody is super happy about it, but it is much better than the other way around.
If you set yourself up on some kind of anti-skeptic campaign here in WP, the time you spend here is going to be very unhappy for you, and you are going to waste a lot of your own time, and other people's time as well.
On top of that, it is an upside down approach to Wikipedia - the result of failing to understand what Wikipedia is, and what it is not.
You will of course do as you choose. Happy to discuss if you like. Jytdog ( talk) 18:52, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
Probrooks ( talk) 23:39, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
Please do not remove information from articles, as you did to Meridian (Chinese medicine). Wikipedia is not censored, and content is not removed on the sole grounds of perceived offensiveness. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page to reach consensus rather than continuing to remove the disputed material. If the content in question involves images, you also have the option to configure Wikipedia to hide the images that you may find offensive. Thank you. Ian.thomson ( talk) 03:50, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Please carefully read this information:
The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.
Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you that sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.Ian.thomson ( talk) 03:53, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Formal notice:
Please carefully read this information:
The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding pseudoscience and fringe science, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.
Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you that sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.-- NeilN talk to me 13:57, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Ian.thomson ( talk) 12:22, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Per the clear consensus in this ANI discussion, you have been indefinitely topic banned from alternative medicine, broadly construed. Please read WP:TBAN to understand what this entails. Failure to adhere to this ban may result in additional sanctions, not excluding an indefinite block. Details on how to appeal this topic ban can be found here: Wikipedia:Banning_policy#Appeals_of_bans_imposed_by_the_community. -- NeilN talk to me 15:25, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
Hello there, you recently reverted an edit I made on the page "Changa". The original line is "Changa has been rapidly growing in popularity due to its ease of smoking, unique herbal alchemy, and longer duration (approximately 10-20 minutes) compared to smoking freebase DMT crystal." I modified it to say "unique chemical properties" instead of "herbal alchemy", as "alchemy" is not a word with a proper pharmaceutical or scientific definition. Here is the definition of "alchemy", as per Merriam-Webster: 1 : a medieval chemical science and speculative philosophy aiming to achieve the transmutation of the base metals into gold, the discovery of a universal cure for disease, and the discovery of a means of indefinitely prolonging life 2 : a power or process that changes or transforms something in a mysterious or impressive way … the practitioners of financial alchemy that transformed the world of money in the 1980's … —Gordon Williams 3 : an inexplicable or mysterious transmuting None of these definitions can accurately be ascribed to changa as there is nothing mysterious about its effects. It is either understood or not, and it may very well be the case that changa's chemical properties are still poorly understood, but the use of the word "alchemy" in a pharmaceutical or scientific context suggests mysticism, which is to be avoided. werewolf ( talk) 15:30, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
Hey Probrooks, you have bulk deleted a 5,000+ section of a carefully constructed contribution concerning MAOIs in Changa. None of the referenced information was of interest to you? I'm happy to work with you to improve citation, where possible. Because it is a drug, much of the information comes from sites that cannot always be referenced but the information is widely accepted as correct - but if not, please discuss with me. For safety, maintaining sections on the dangers of MAOIs is important, as is building the overall understanding of the substance. It would be great if anyone else can help with building these sections too, and additional citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doc Shaman ( talk • contribs) 22:14, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
Hello, Probrooks, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:
You may also want to take the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit The Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.
Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or to ask for help on your talk page, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! FreeKnowledgeCreator ( talk) 08:53, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
Hi Probrooks, I can see that you are somewhat new here and you apear to have made a number of small but valuable improvments to articles. Good work, and thank you for your help. I really wanted to urge you to take some time to become familiar with some of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Becoming familiar with these guidelines will make you a more productive editor. If you make edits that show some degree of unfamiliarity with these rules you might find yourself subject to greater scruitny within our community.
In particular please take a look at our Notability guidelines, which help us decide which topics are suitable for inclusion in wikipedia, Reliable Sources guidelines which help us select content suitable for sourcing, and specifically WP:MEDRS which should be carefully read if you intend to edit articles about products which make health or wellbeing claims. You might also want to read WP:FRINGE which suggests ways that we might cover topics that are on the fringes of science and culure. -- Salimfadhley ( talk) 00:47, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
Hi Probbrooks - I can see that you appear to be continuing a debate over at Talk:Bach_flower_remedies which maeans that you probably didn't yet follow my previous advice. Let me put this in somewhat starker terms: Many wikipedia editors will interpret your current behsvior as 'disruptive editing', in particular use of talk pages to promote a fringe POV or conduct advocacy is a practice that is generally frowned upon. I know that you feel that you are correcting other people's misunderstndings of a subject that you know well but people simply won't see it that way.
The advice I'd give you for now is to cool it. Think for ten minutes before crafting your next response. Instead of writing ten paragraphs, write one short paragraph that gets to the point more quiickly. Also learn how to use Wikipedia's threaded discussions (because you are messsing up the talk pages and that's another way to irritate people). ou
The consequence of not taking this advice will be to draw further attention to yourself. You might find that the next editors you interact with are less inclined to chat with you but instead seek to restrict your use of the site. -- Salimfadhley ( talk) 12:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
You mentioned some sympathy for Larry Sanger's reasons for quitting Wikipedia to found the rival Citizendium. Actually many of your opinions seem to allign better with Citizendium than Wikipedia.
CZ's policies express somewhat different concepts of neutrality and notability. [1]. In particular, one aspect you might like is that CZ specifically solicits "expert opinion" rather than relying (as we do on WP) on reliable sources. This means that articles need not be constrained by what other publishers have previously seen fit to write about. Experts such as yourself have a broader remit to write what they know.
You may also like to read Wikipedia's reasons for not adopting the same policies: WP:CITIZENDIUM. -- Salimfadhley ( talk) 00:43, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
Oh, look, here is another study I found!
http://chp.sagepub.com/content/12/1/3.abstract
Just curious, do you have a source for that Nikola Tesla quote you mentioned earlier? -- Salimfadhley ( talk) 06:18, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
You currently appear to be engaged in an
edit war according to the reverts you have made on
Isolation tank. Users are expected to
collaborate with others, to avoid editing
disruptively, and to
try to reach a consensus rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.
Please be particularly aware that Wikipedia's policy on edit warring states:
If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes; work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing. Alexbrn ( talk) 02:07, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
Please carefully read this information:
The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.
Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you that sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.Alexbrn ( talk) 02:09, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
If you like please read User:Jytdog#NPOV_part_1:_secondary_sources; I think it will help you understand how to edit here. If you have any questions about that, you can ask me here, if you like. Jytdog ( talk) 23:03, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
Also, about this comment, you are not understanding WP:CONSENSUS. Consensus includes all the past consensus that has been formed by the community over the years. Consensus findings within the community that address fundamental issues (ones that are raised over and over) are what we call the " policies and guidelines" (PAG). PAG were not imposed from on high -- the community itself established them over the past 15 years. They form the foundation for everything that happens here. And yes PAG can change with time - slowly and with difficulty. Local consensus at an article (which cannot trump the global consensus expressed in PAG) can change with time too - as new sources emerge or different people come along who agree to apply PAG differently -- but all those local discussions must be grounded in PAG - in other words, in the deeper consensus of the community. Without that foundation, this place would be a wild west - a Mad Max world that is all about power and game-playing. That is not how it really is. How it really is, is that editors who are what we call clueful (please read that, it is very short) - are listened to in discussions, and the edits they make stick and are not reverted -- exactly because what they say and do complies with PAG. That is how this place works. Jytdog ( talk) 23:27, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
@ Probrooks: I totally agree with you that the article is presenting a level of certainty that the CDC report does not convey. Also it supports the idea that Morgellons people are delusional by citing the Atlantic which does not by any means count as WP:MEDRS and it says there that "some people have linked Morgellons "to another illness viewed skeptically by most doctors, chronic Lyme disease"." sourced to the Atlantic, of all places, when in fact there is on going research by many scientists into a link with Bovine Digital Dermatitis and many peer reviewed high quality medical cites they could give for that. Not WP:MEDRS but neither is the Atlantic, if it deserves to be mentioned, as surely it does, it should be cited properly. I think the article is very biased.
I have been warned by @ Jytdog: that they will take me to Arbitration Enforcement for a topic ban if I continue to talk about this on the talk page which is why I stopped talking there. I don't think they have a case, because the discretionary sanctions are for pseudo science and fringe science, and the recent work on Morgellons is neither. But I've experienced these sanction discussions before and the admins judging them are not familiar with details of topics at all, no way that they would check cites and they'd be easily convinced that it is fringe or pseudoscience. And I must not be banned again because of a project I want to publicize on wikipedia for comment to help banned editors. So I am out of this unless @ Jytdog: withdraws the threat (their own words) which they have also explained on my talk page they take very seriously. So I just can't risk it. But you have all my moral support here! Robert Walker ( talk) 12:31, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
Sorry about this. It's not that I lack conviction though, it's just that I'm scared to speak my mind here, because I don't want to be taken to AE, especially having been through several stressful previous events. But I should have just stopped. After all, I made my point on the talk page already as you say :). And we have also rather hijacked your talk page and sorry about that! Robert Walker ( talk) 13:38, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
@ Probrooks: I just realized that as a newbie editor, you won't understand the context to all this discussion, and as someone who is thinking of possibly trying to get the article "sorted out" in the future, it's good that yuou know the background.
The thing is that Jytdog warned me that there are discretionary sanctions in place for Medicine on pseudoscience. This is to prevent cranks from wasting the time of other editors. If the other editors say they are being bothered by a crank, the admins will act quickly to ban them from the talk page. You might think that they would do an investigation, read the cites and check for themselves that it is pseudoscience. But no, that's not how justice is done here, instead it is done as a community similar to the editing process. The admins will look at my edit history and see that I have contributed to the talk page several times in long conversations with other editors opposed to me. They will also ask the editors if what I'm talking about is pseudoscience. Obviously @ Jytdog: will say it is, as will several other editors. I'd argue in the same discussion that it is genuine science. But you do get psuedoscience or dubious science that gets accepted in peer reviewed journals sometimes (e.g. Cold fusion, or Water memory), so it won't be enough to show that it is published in peer reviewed medical journals. And the admins won't read the articles. The yalso judge very swiftly - if the case seems a clear one to them, they will give their decisions in minutes. So if most of the editors on the talk page say it is pseudoscience, the admins will accept that as the community decision and ban me.
I've had experience of this in the past (not of discretionary sanctions but of community justice here) and know that it works that way and I don't have a lot of confidence in the community sourced justice system on wikipedia as a result. It's not the admins that are the problem in my view, it's the system as a whole, that it can lead occasionally to miscarriages of justice. And that's why I don't want to risk being taken to AE while at the same time being certain myself from reading all the papers carefully that it is genuine science. And that's why I can't answer @ Jytdog:'s points in this discussion because to continue to do so after the clear warnings he has given would be enough reason for admins to ban me. That's also why he is so confident in his ability to ban me, which comes over to you as arrogance.
Hope this helps you understand the situation. If you ever get a warning of discretionary sanctions, or someone says they are planning to take you to arbitration on some other matter, don't ignore it. Though ordinary editors can spend years on wikipedia without ever encountering this, I did myself. Robert Walker ( talk) 08:07, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Sorry about that. I've copied it over to my talk page and replied here. Robert Walker ( talk) 13:08, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
n/t - 165.234.252.11 ( talk) 16:05, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
The mission of WP is to summarize accepted knowledge. This is described in WP:NOTEVERYTHING.
Wikipedia is also "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Can edit. Editing is privilege extended to everyone. But there are strings attached. In exchange for the privilege of editing, WP requires people to follow the policies and guidelines, which include the mission. This is part of the Terms of Use, which every editor agrees to, each time they save an edit. (The time you edit, read the text that is just above the "save" button).
However, a lot of people feel passionately about things, and they come here to write about whatever it is they are passionate about and they don't take that deal into consideration - they don't stop, slow down, and actually try to understand the policies and guidelines and how we operate here.
One kind of such editors, is people who feel passionately about some health thing. There are many, many people out there who strongly believe "X is so" and they come to Wikipedia and want to make Wikipedia says "X is so". This has happened ever since WP existed.
As a result, the community formed the WP:PSCI policy as part of NPOV, and then created the FRINGE guideline to help people understand and work with PSCI. The community did this.
The key thing I hope you understand is that WP probably would be a lot more neutral if there were not constant promotional pressure for "X is so". That is where the problems arise.
For instance what MEDRS sources say about Morgellons is that it is poorly understood but appears to be a form of delusional parasitosis. Morgellons advocates hate that and try to make WP say it is an actual thing. Neutral editors dig in and say "no it is a delusion" and we end up with content that sometimes is more certain than things really are. The neutral editors are way, way closer to expressing "accepted knowledge" than the Morgellons advocates are, so the community lets that be. Nobody is super happy about it, but it is much better than the other way around.
If you set yourself up on some kind of anti-skeptic campaign here in WP, the time you spend here is going to be very unhappy for you, and you are going to waste a lot of your own time, and other people's time as well.
On top of that, it is an upside down approach to Wikipedia - the result of failing to understand what Wikipedia is, and what it is not.
You will of course do as you choose. Happy to discuss if you like. Jytdog ( talk) 18:52, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
Probrooks ( talk) 23:39, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
Please do not remove information from articles, as you did to Meridian (Chinese medicine). Wikipedia is not censored, and content is not removed on the sole grounds of perceived offensiveness. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page to reach consensus rather than continuing to remove the disputed material. If the content in question involves images, you also have the option to configure Wikipedia to hide the images that you may find offensive. Thank you. Ian.thomson ( talk) 03:50, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Please carefully read this information:
The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.
Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you that sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.Ian.thomson ( talk) 03:53, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Formal notice:
Please carefully read this information:
The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding pseudoscience and fringe science, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.
Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you that sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.-- NeilN talk to me 13:57, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Ian.thomson ( talk) 12:22, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Per the clear consensus in this ANI discussion, you have been indefinitely topic banned from alternative medicine, broadly construed. Please read WP:TBAN to understand what this entails. Failure to adhere to this ban may result in additional sanctions, not excluding an indefinite block. Details on how to appeal this topic ban can be found here: Wikipedia:Banning_policy#Appeals_of_bans_imposed_by_the_community. -- NeilN talk to me 15:25, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
Hello there, you recently reverted an edit I made on the page "Changa". The original line is "Changa has been rapidly growing in popularity due to its ease of smoking, unique herbal alchemy, and longer duration (approximately 10-20 minutes) compared to smoking freebase DMT crystal." I modified it to say "unique chemical properties" instead of "herbal alchemy", as "alchemy" is not a word with a proper pharmaceutical or scientific definition. Here is the definition of "alchemy", as per Merriam-Webster: 1 : a medieval chemical science and speculative philosophy aiming to achieve the transmutation of the base metals into gold, the discovery of a universal cure for disease, and the discovery of a means of indefinitely prolonging life 2 : a power or process that changes or transforms something in a mysterious or impressive way … the practitioners of financial alchemy that transformed the world of money in the 1980's … —Gordon Williams 3 : an inexplicable or mysterious transmuting None of these definitions can accurately be ascribed to changa as there is nothing mysterious about its effects. It is either understood or not, and it may very well be the case that changa's chemical properties are still poorly understood, but the use of the word "alchemy" in a pharmaceutical or scientific context suggests mysticism, which is to be avoided. werewolf ( talk) 15:30, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
Hey Probrooks, you have bulk deleted a 5,000+ section of a carefully constructed contribution concerning MAOIs in Changa. None of the referenced information was of interest to you? I'm happy to work with you to improve citation, where possible. Because it is a drug, much of the information comes from sites that cannot always be referenced but the information is widely accepted as correct - but if not, please discuss with me. For safety, maintaining sections on the dangers of MAOIs is important, as is building the overall understanding of the substance. It would be great if anyone else can help with building these sections too, and additional citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doc Shaman ( talk • contribs) 22:14, 10 March 2022 (UTC)