User talk:Shibbolethink

If you're here to place a D/S notice for any topic related to science, medicine, or anything that might remotely be considered a conspiracy theory, don't bother. I'm already aware. You may point to this notice if it ever comes up.

Attention: I prefer to keep discussions unfragmented. If you leave a comment for me here, I will most likely respond to it on this same page—my talk page—as an effort to keep the entire conversation in one place. By the same token, if I leave a comment on your talk page, please respond to it there. Remember, we can use our watchlist to keep track of when responses are made. At the same time, feel free to send an alert to me on this page about a comment you have left elsewhere.

Thank you!

Women in Red World Contest

Hi. We're into the last five days of the Women in Red World Contest. There's a new bonus prize of $200 worth of books of your choice to win for creating the most new women biographies between 0:00 on the 26th and 23:59 on 30th November. If you've been contributing to the contest, thank you for your support, we've produced over 2000 articles. If you haven't contributed yet, we would appreciate you taking the time to add entries to our articles achievements list by the end of the month. Thank you, and if participating, good luck with the finale!

Thanks

For your insightful comments and the new face you have brought to the topic. I'm getting tired of arguing with single purpose accounts and am seriously considering pressing the big red button – this kind of thing has been ongoing since at least May last year (this might just be an overreaction, feel free to tell me).

In other, less tense news, there's this post of mine which I've seen no reply to yet. Your expert opinion (is this something which we ought to mention somewhere? are there other papers on this which I've missed?) would be welcome.

Also, on a separate question, could you help give me a summary list of what the most credible journals in the subject-matter are? Besides the obvious (Nature et al.) I've come upon Reviews in Medical Virology, but I'm sure that's not the only or even the best one. Some users are questioning this with dubious claims, and while of course I haven't so far found any paper which credibly supports the fringe theories (if you want a good laugh, there's this, which makes all sorts of laughable claims [bonus: affiliated with places such as "Institute for the Study of Panspermia and Astroeconomics"...]), I'd rather we can cite the best sources on this. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:48, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

haha, definitely happy to help. I know I'm sorry I haven't replied yet! I'm supposed to be studying for phase 1 of my medical licensing exams (I take it on Tuesday, for 6 frickin' hours). In general I do think those arguments about the virus circulating for a few weeks before December (or even months before) are intriguing. We do know that the first part of the influenza season likely covered up the first crop of these influenza-like illnesses, and it was only noticeable when they started to grow in number. But the inverse could also be true, it could be that it was just the beginning of flu season and the virus really did show up in late November early December. I'm not really convinced yet, because we're missing the truly high quality evidence about it... What we really need is a bunch of blood bank samples from October and November and December in Wuhan and the surrounding areas of the province. And then for someone to do a bunch of ELISAs on those samples looking for antibodies against both external (meaning the spike) and internal proteins (all the building blocks of the lil package inside) of SARS-CoV-2. I forget who it was but somebody once called viruses "RNA and protein wrapped in bad news." Or something like that. Anyway, my point is, these tests could tell us whether the virus was circulating in those populations in that time. They'd need to have control samples to show they weren't getting false positives from other coronaviruses as well. If China would share this kind of data/resources, we could actually solve this thing. But alas! And yes! I can also definitely help you out with a list of credible virology journals. Suffice it to say, the weirder the title and the less prominent the word "virology" .... you get the drift. But yes! I will do all of these things next week when I am not studying my brains out! Sorry for not getting back to you sooner but basically every moment I spend on wiki is time I'm stealing away from my future career prospects, and I definitely have a problem with procrastination!--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:06, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

No problem. Thanks for the reply, and good luck (or, being a musician, I know there's only a bit of luck in that and it's mostly about preparation). Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:09, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

no truly you're right to cite luck, there's only so much preparation you can do when they're asking me to memorize more details than could ever be humanly possible! That's what my pulmonology professor (who used to be a professional bassist) used to tell me. There's a reason the 99th percentile on this test is only like an 80% correct! It's like 40% perspiration, 20% luck, 10% not overworking yourself to death, and the last 20% is unattainable just give up now. They only keep making it harder. But anyway thanks, and I'll be back soon--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:37, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: working on that summary list over here! should be ready in a few days to a week. Gonna try and get it added to WP:Viruses as a guideline--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:20, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Additional question (when you have time)

• See this, particularly the bit where I talk about selective pressure but can't remember which paper(s) I'm referring to... It's surely something which you've already heard of? Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:19, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

I added two papers there that may be what you were talking about. Not 100% sure. It's definitely under positive selection pressure because it's relatively fixed. The virus is crippled without it!--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:28, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

• • Also (excuse me for being annoying), is there anything useful in either of Wu et al. or Zhang et al. (citations in the article) which would allow placing a phylogenetic tree in H10N3? They both have such diagrams, but I'm not sure how to interpret/summarise them when there are so many different strains listed (also, the problem is they're all primary studies, so likely should only be used for rather mundane claims, or statements which are clearly secondary analysis of existing literature). Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:44, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: We may be able to find a review paper that places H10N3 in the context of all zoonotic flu viruses, and have more useful phylogenetic trees... I'll keep my eyes/ears open, I do think such a review will exist shortly if it doesn't already! They always pop up in the few weeks following an announcement like this.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:28, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, will look up at the usual places. As for this, WP:AE might be a better venue (clearer structure + word limits, which avoids the usual free-for-all pile-on of the dramaboard) given this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:34, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Ah thank you, that is very good advice. Still gathering diffs, and waiting for diffs. But yes, I think the lowest amount of drama and headache, the better. :) --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:39, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Chimpanzee on a "Maths, science, and technology" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 01:30, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Reddit post

Hi Shibbolethink, I started reading the PDF version of your Reddit post and found it interesting. I agree with 96% of the material, however the remaining 4% makes our points of view as dissimilar as RaTG13 and SARS-COV-2. Given that most lab origins proponents have emphasised that GoF isn't necessarily involved, and given that one prominent lab origins hypothesis doesn't include it at all [1], I believe your post is overfixated on GoF as the primary means by which the yet unknown progenitor of this virus may have gained functions to obtain transmissibility in humans to become what we know it as today. Do you intend to update your paper to include the latest developments? I'll keep reading and provide some more feedback. CutePeach (talk) 11:15, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

As I say in the post: Here’s a choose-your-own adventure and Firstly, if this post looks long ( and I’m sorry, it is ), then please skip around on it. It’s a Q & A. Go to the questions you’ve actually asked yourself!. You...don't appear to be doing that. You've gone to questions you've already decided are invalid and then decided they are an overemphasis on something you personally believe is not as likely. This post was written to also answer the many people who believe in the bioweapon conspiracy theory.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:40, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Talk template transclusions

Hi Shibbolethink, are you intentionally transcluding RfCs onto multiple noticeboards? When you use the {{Talk}} template, it's transcluding whole talk page sections onto the noticeboards. I am not sure that's the way to do things, and other users seem to be confused as well. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 18:41, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I was only trying to transclude the RfC section, is that allowed? As far as I can tell, there is no actual WP:PAG about this... I get that it is customary to just post a notice, but why would it be wrong to just transclude the RfC? If it is wrong, or there's some WP:PAG against it, I of course will not do it. But if it's possible to just transclude the RfC, why not? Seems cleaner to me--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:46, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Accidental transclusions

Hi there. You seem to be transcluding the entire content of article talk pages to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. I presume this is a mistake? Cordless Larry (talk) 18:42, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Ah yes, that is a mistake. My mistake, sorry!! I was trying to just transclude the particular section. Is that allowed? Or should I only post notices, not even an RfC transclusion? I couldn't find any policy actually saying that was a bad idea, that's why I did it! --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:45, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Responding here just to keep it in one section (feel free to remove/archive my section above if you'd like). I wouldn't recommend transclusions, even if there were a good way to do it and no policy objections. A short notice is nice, but I'd hate to see the noticeboards clogged up with transcluded talk page sections. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 18:49, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Oh, that's fair. You know I hadn't even considered the Kantian categorical imperative implications of that. I'll just stick to using Template:Rfc notice. Sorry for the trouble, won't happen again! --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:51, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

BLP violations at Talk:DRASTIC

Contrary to what you appear to believe, [2] BLP does apply to talk pages. It applies throughout the project. Please either source the contentious negative claims, or delete the material. Geogene (talk) 20:38, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

We're literally discussing these claims in the RfC. They are core to the RfC, and hence should not be removed. I get that you disagree with my interpretation of the sources, but that is wholly distinct from saying I've committed a BLP violation. I simply claimed that members of the group referred to themselves as conspiracy-minded. Which is, from my perspective, a factual understanding of the source material. And I provided a quote to back that up. You may disagree with that interpretation, but it doesn't make it a BLP violation. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:42, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

As I said above, report me to WP:ANI or WP:ARBE if you want, or bring it up on the BLP Noticeboard. But I'm really quite confident that this is not a BLP violation. I've added a clarifying note to that box as well, to demonstrate what conclusions I'm drawing from each quote. I would encourage you to re-read WP:ASPERSIONS. Not saying that's what you're doing, but saying if you try to use accusations like this as a WP:BLUDGEON to silence people you disagree with, then that would be a matter I would bring up to ANI or ARBE. Have a great day.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:52, 24 June 2021 (UTC)