User talk:Petrarchan47

"Wikipedia has the possibility of being both the greatest informational source in human history, or the most corrupt propaganda dissemination tool imaginable." (source)

"But perhaps even more insidious [than cases such as the WifiOne] are clever editors with an agenda, some paid, some with socks. I believe such editors are likely to be working for various interests. I will be happy to watch and perhaps comment on your proposal, but again, I don't believe it can get past a group of determined and in some cases deeply hostile editing interests who will make it their continuing work to shame, blame and otherwise shout down any such proposals, and for reasons ranging from completely innocent and well-meaning to the darkest imaginable. Certainly, I hope to be proved wrong, but I believe TOU enforcement is going to have to come from the top down, and that all paid editing needs to be banned." (source)

"Wikipedia is at a crossroads ... in my view there are trucks of corporate and military/intelligence owned editors barreling down on concerned unpaid editors from all directions. The 'pedia is increasingly functioning as corporate/political PR, and those in the way are targeted, just as Scientologists target "Repressive Persons." There are times I can't believe my eyes and have to walk away." (source)

-- Jusdafax

Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, April 2015:

"The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness."

From Genetically modified food: Consternation, confusion, and crack-up:

"The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability — not the validity — of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong."

From Medical Journals Are an Extension of the Marketing Arm of Pharmaceutical Companies:

"(Medical) journals have devolved into information laundering operations for the pharmaceutical industry."

This message contains important information about an administrative situation on Wikipedia. It does not imply any misconduct regarding your own contributions to date.

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 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.

Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:10, 20 April 2015 (UTC)Template:Z33

Epic Atsme response

I can't think of a better incentive for encouraging editors to improve articles or for recruiting new volunteers to our wonderful encyclopedia... [1] I thought the following was pretty interesting, too: Why is Wikipedia losing contributors - Thinking about remedies. But hey, look at the bright side - WP won't run out of editors, at least for a while anyway. Outfits like Guerrilla Skeptics are busy recruiting new advocates editors every day: [2] [3]. I think SlimVirgin is well aware of what's going on, and I commend her efforts for actually trying to keep a handle on things.

It's pretty obvious why big $$$ has such an intense interest in WP - [4] I can't think of a better place for them to peddle their wares, and that includes all aspects of it from mainstream to fringe. In the interim, editors will keep being cautioned (intimidated, actually) to not say anything negative about mainstream and they'll be kept in line with multiple DS notices advising everyone to mind our Ps and Qs while the travesties continue and those we once looked up to turn a blind eye. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]. The sad part is the fact that the hands of conventional or orthodox whatever you want to call it are not clean, either. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]. Yet, your biggest concern is over a little old BLP about an author who tried to expose the corruption. Has anybody noticed how much money FDA approved meds and treatments take in while they criticize alternative (now integrative according to Mayo), calling them quacks and charlatans for scamming people out of their money? [16]. Me thinks the lady doth protest too much. Atsme☯^Consult

Reference errors on 17 July

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Seeds of Death: Unveiling the Lies of GMOs , my request to RHaworth

Hi again Petrarchan47, below is a C&P of my request I posted to RHaworth on this users Talk page

Seeds of Death: Unveiling the Lies of GMOs - Please restore article

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Dear RHaworth, I totally disagree with the deletion of Seeds of Death: Unveiling the Lies of GMOs. The reasons given for its deletion and totally incorrect. There is nothing about the article that is intentionally or unintentionally promotional in any way. If that were the case then we could argue that X-Men: Days of Future Past is nothing more than a shameless promotion for Lauren Shuler Donner and 20th Century Fox and their shareholders. And if that's the case then we had better set about deleting 99% of the film articles in Wikipedia. Either that or Wikipedia must rebrand itself. It must announce a new policy that anything to do with controversial subject or anything that may lead to people questioning the official version of things such as GMOs, BIG PHARMA, vaccinations, the military industry be banned. I'm in no way saying that your actions are anything to do with certain agendas taking place. Not at all. But I am saying now that there are serious discussions taking place. Serious discussions taking place about who may really control and influence Wikipedia. Many thanks. Mr Bill Truth (talk) 09:36, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

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So I'll see what the outcome is. I'll give it another shot. Mr Bill Truth (talk) 09:54, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the article should have been speedily deleted, and have weighed in at the linked talk page. I would advise, from personal experience, that while it may feel cathartic to speak your truth about what you believe may be going on behind the scenes, it does no good whatsoever unless these issues are brought up in the proper forum with evidence provided. This is more easily said than done, of course; even finding the proper venue is quite a challenge, especially for a new-ish editor. I still would advise you to give up on WP and run like hell if you have any love of the truth and/or an aversion to propaganda. I would also stick by my suggestion, if you choose to stay, to find a mentor to discuss these issues with and from whom you can get grounded advice for moving forward. You are taking on the establishment thinking the truth and WP guidelines (as well as common sense and logic) are all you need to prevail. I once believed that too. I feel I am about to watch yet another editor be chewed up and spit out whilst an angry team of editors watches and cheers. This is not something I want to see. Whatever you do, please put yourself first. It isn't up to you to save WP - your own peace of mind does much more to benefit this world that any edits you might make on WP. petrarchan47คุก 23:56, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Bless you for your advice and at the right time and at the protection of my sanity, I'll remember it and use it to decide. Believe me, in another time, another place where race-hate was the issue istead of truth destruction, I was told a similar thing. Anyway I have puit it in at Deletion review — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr Bill Truth (talk • contribs) 11:48, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

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The review is happening Wikipedia:Deletion review - Seeds of Death: Unveiling the Lies of GMOs so we'll see how it shapes up. Thanks Mr Bill Truth (talk) 11:06, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

A message posted

I have posted a message in response to ehat you have said on the Joseph Mercola talk page. I see attempts to bully you and some threats. I've noticed something to which I will tell you about sometime. All I can say is that it's good that you have kept your integrity. Too often decent people give in and go with the flow to climb the social ladder at Wikipedia. Unfortunately along the way they lose something precious. I'm glad you haven't. Mr Bill Truth (talk) 13:12, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

That page was far too hostile for me. I've no interest in taking part of any more conversations there. petrarchan47คุก 00:19, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

@Jusdafax You haven't seen ANYTHING yet. petrarchan47คุก 23:55, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Jusdafax trying to ping again... petrarchan47คุก 23:56, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi Petra, yeah I'm afraid to look. But, what's up? Jusdafax 23:59, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

That's all. Have you ever heard of "Guerrilla Skeptics on Wikipedia"? Look it up, if not. petrarchan47คุก 01:44, 30 August 2015 (UTC) (This has nothing, or very little, to do with the present fiasco @ GM, but rather with WP hosting attack pages and in general promoting a wildly pro-pharma/biotech POV, whilst allowing the abuse of editors and misuse of guidelines, like MEDRS, to do it.) petrarchan47คุก 01:52, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I'll look at it, thanks. This is a topic I am not a master of, though any reasonably competent Wikipedia editor can see a hatchet job for what it is. Dare I suggest you create a subpage of articles that need improvement from the point of view of balance? I for one would appreciate knowing your specific problem articles. I for example only recently came across this article: Regulation of the release of genetically modified organisms, which appears to have major issues. Jusdafax 02:06, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, I'm not going out on a limb here to say that any article that has anything remotely to do with biotech or the Pharmaceutical industry has been hit. If you find ONE article that Monsanto would have interest in that does not appear to be written by a PR rep, I will pay you $100. As for pharma articles, I haven't run into one in the past year or so that isn't totally spun and that doesn't read like an FDA pamphlet. The circle of folks involved tend to !Vote in a pack, so the system, as you say, has been gamed. petrarchan47คุก 02:21, 30 August 2015 (UTC) -- But, I will point out specific articles, and even edits if you like. petrarchan47คุก 02:22, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

One example of the scale of this: Wikipedia was called out by a team of scientists, and over 300 signatories, for creating a false claim about the safety of GMOs, and for misrepresenting the science in it's GM foods article (see footnotes 3 and 16). That is shameful. And still, 8 months after the release of this paper and 2 months after an RfC pretty much ended up aligning with the claims from the group, there is no rush but rather stagnation and games played to keep from mentioning anything that isn't favorable to biotech. The most recent and highest quality source we have on the safety of GMO food also supports the findings in the paper, and the WP community who found that claims of a safety consensus were unsupported by the refs being used. This source, when brought to the talk page, was dismissed with what appears to be a lie ("We've already discussed this"). Now, any editor interested in science based articles should have added that review immediately, not delayed but celebrated that we have such a great source to quote! Is this not common sense? petrarchan47คุก 03:09, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

• The organization you cited earlier has a pretty good whiff of Big pharma, which of course leads us to Big Pharma conspiracy theory. Interesting. As for this study, I'll take a look here in a bit, and comment further. Sometimes this stuff is easier to take in small, uh, doses! Jusdafax 03:29, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Looks like there are similar problems here. petrarchan47คุก 03:30, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Yup, but I see consensus. It should be added now. Jusdafax 07:37, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I'll be mindful to keep this in small doses. As for the GM suite of articles, Tsavage is summarizing the problems in some recent diffs, namely this, this and this. S/he's looked into these articles more deeply and for longer than I and is a joy to read, at any rate. I've been focused mostly on the GM foods page and on the unsupported claim of scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs (it was valid attempts to fix this that earned Pro a visit to the edit warring noticeboard).

From Tsavage regarding the GMO suite:

"A central problem here, as has been noted in detail in earlier recent discussions on this Talk page, is that Genetically modified food controversies is a poorly formed article, one of a set of spinoff articles that fractured this main article, and located material that is central to this topic, elsewhere. Much of the controversies article addresses non-controversial aspects of GM food, and serves as a rebuttal to vaguely stated controversies. An argument was made that, now that a GM food controversies article exists, we are bound by WP:SUMMARY to only edit certain topics there, then only reflect them here if they percolate to the lead of that article. This isn't efficient or constructive, and is not policy-based, it's an arbitrary and overly restrictive application of a general editing guideline. Articles should be improved independently, and not bound by the deficiencies of other articles. -- User:Tsavage ping petrarchan47คุก 20:19, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd agree, to be brief. To return to the original topic on this thread I just discovered this list - what an amazing group. I don't believe there is any similar group advocating for Alternative Medicine. Sort of unbalanced, I would think. Jusdafax 21:40, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. Project Medicine dovetails with this group, and is very anti-alternative medicine (or any natural, non-pharma remedy), at least from what I've experienced. I know Atsme talked a bit about forming a group to help balance this out. Perhaps we can revive that idea. The Skeptics group leader brags that she has 100 editors under her control. If you get bored I can link you to past conversations we 've had on the subject, or you can be lazy and just trust me ;) petrarchan47คุก 22:08, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Infinite monkey theorem

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Please comment on Talk:Deluge (software)

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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Notability (software)

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OR ping

You have been mentioned here. prokaryotes (talk) 22:06, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

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ANI

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Jytdog (talk) 20:21, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration request notice

You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#GMO articles and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. As threaded discussion is not permitted in most arbitration pages please ensure that you make all comments in your own section only. Additionally, the guide to arbitration and the Arbitration Committee's procedures may be of use.

Thanks, Looie496 (talk) 15:55, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Statement at Arbcom case page

Hi. In your statement you quoted me as saying, "GMOs are inherently dangerous". What I actually wrote was, "GMOs are intrinsically harmful". If you put something in quotation marks, you should make sure that it is an exact match. The difference isn't huge in this case, but there is a basic principle involved. Best regards, Looie496 (talk) 19:17, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing that out. Can you show me where you got the idea that editors are attempting to add this POV either to talk or article pages? I'll correct the wording in my statement. Best, petrarchan47คุก 20:32, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting the quote. I didn't actually say that editors are attempting to add that POV anywhere in particular. I believe, though, that my formulation expresses the underlying attitude of the anti-GMO camp. You have indicated your disagreement, and that's fine. Best regards, Looie496 (talk) 22:06, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

I misread you, and apologized in my comment section. Thanks again for sticking your neck out, we've been needing this for along time. Cheers, petrarchan47คุก 22:09, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Some thoughts

Petra, I thank you for bringing up numerous good points at the recent train wreck at ANI. The remarkable effort to use quotes from this page as some kind of "gotcha" mechanism was, as noted, part of a strangely clumsy and spectacular failure that had to be struck through in messy disgrace, as did parts of the complaint against you. Rightly or wrongly, it gives the appearance of an attempt at a larger "chilling effect." In any case, I refuse to be intimidated by those of obvious ill-will, and shall continue to speak out as I see fit, here and elsewhere.

As I mentioned in the now-closed ANI mess, the filing timing at the start of a holiday weekend could not have been worse, and yet, in the end, it may have been for the best. As for ArbCom, you are quite right to object to the framing of the initial filing, which I regard as flawed. Post ANI, should the Arbs agree to take the case, I am optimistic regarding the outcome. My best wishes, Jusdafax 01:29, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Would you consider expounding on the statement about framing, perhaps in a little comment at the case filing? If not, I'd still like to hear a tad bit more. Cheers, petrarchan47คุก 05:33, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm still catching up on the ANI, and am digesting the implications, but you have done well to point out this statement in the initial ArbCom filing: "Underlying this problem at the deepest level is a disagreement about policy, which comes down to a disagreement about the proper application of the principles outlined at WP:FRINGE. In the scientific community the idea that GMOs are intrinsically harmful is a fringe theory." For the second sentence to stand is improper. Clearly there is considerable science that casts serious doubts, and this assumption in the initial statement is at least debatable. I have also taken a stand at the Afd you have correctly pointed out, which itself is an astonishing bit of gamesmanship gaining no support and is arguably actionable on it's own, and fits into a pattern of editing that I'd also call actionable. We are past the trout stage, I believe.

As you know, the case filing's initial issue regards ArbCom taking the case on. I think the odds are pretty good, and am likely to comment there, but being three days behind puts me at a disadvantage. Thanks again for your work, which has clearly been effective. Jusdafax 07:22, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind words and atta boys. Unfortunately, I've removed the statement about the framing to keep under 500 words. Maybe you'll have room to mention it. petrarchan47คุก 00:00, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Both. Jytdog has just edited his statement at arbcom, however, it is still 619 words. What is the history of the clerks insisting this is 500 words. In my experience of scientific publishing, an allowance of 10% is sometimes made, but the statement is still way beyond this. Perhaps of more concern is his tactic of linking to other long discussions in presenting evidence against other editors. To me, he appears to be gaming the word limit restriction. Perhaps the clerk will sort this all out in the future? Any thoughts?DrChrissy ^(talk) 13:22, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

My advice is that editors should focus on their own statements. The issues that a statement should address are (a) should there be a case, and (b) if so, what should the case examine? The second is more important, because at this point is looks very probable that a case will be accepted. Leave it to the clerks to determine whether other parties are abiding by the rules. In this matter Jytdog's behavior is the main point of controversy, so the clerk might see it as reasonable to give him a bit of extra space for his statement. Best regards, Looie496 (talk) 13:55, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for that Looie496. Good, clear advice. I am beginning to get rather concerned about Jytdog. He has clearly just followed me here.[17] Why would an editor do this given the current atmosphere about his behaviour?DrChrissy ^(talk) 14:11, 10 September 2015 (UTC)