User talk:Ramdrake/Archive 2

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Archive 4

Wikipedia:Meetup/Montreal

I see you are a user located in Montréal, you may be interested in: Wikipedia:Meetup/Montreal. Please add your name to the "Interested" or to the "Not interested" list. Date is set for May 3rd 2008 and Buffet La Stanza is the proposed location. If you have another idea for the location; propose away! Please pass on to any Montreal Wikis you maybe aware of and who are not yet listed as interested, may be interested, or not interested. Pro bug catcher (talk • contribs). 04:50, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I've just seen you're already listed as interested... This can be an update on time and date. Pro bug catcher (talk • contribs). 05:11, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Talk: French people

Wow, resorting to personal attacks and insults with no factual basis whatsoever. It seems that you are both the ones who lack credibility in these discussions. Just because I interpreted a source and its information differently (and clearly more accurately if you look at the description of demographics in other countries of the US Department of State's background notes, which deals with the ethnic composition) from yours does not mean I am "lying". Honestly, I don't really care if you think "I haven't made a good argument" and it is quite obvious that neither of you have made a valid response to them. My conclusion is that both of you have resorted to personal insults (please see WP:No Personal Attacks) because my POV and arguments strongly challenge yours. You are both abrasive and ignorant users and I am personally fed up with your "ganging-up" method of dealing with very supported viewpoints from other users that challenge your own. When someone interprets an issue differently with strong reasoning behind it, it does not merit you to make ad hominem arguments. Whatever relevance you had in this discussion has evaporated. Epf (talk) 15:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Québécois

Hi Ramdrake, since you've been involved on the page, I was wondering if you could help me deal with edits by Soulscanner like these: [1] [2] [3] Joeldl (talk) 09:47, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

anti-semitism

I appreciate the comment but what can I do? I made a post at AN/I, maybe you could leave a comment there. I left a message at Jimbo's talk page, no response. One thing maybe we can do is start to keep a detailed record (edit differences) of disruptive editing and fringe pushing violations. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:16, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 23:50, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Oops, you did it again

You wrote in an edit summary on the R&I article, "15:12, 18 March 2008 Ramdrake (Talk | contribs) (114,783 bytes) (Revert - it is the responsibility of the editor pushing for inclusion to gather consensus on the talk page once edits have been challenged.)", but then failed to follow it yourself by reverting my edit.[4] You are surely not that innocent. --Jagz (talk) 01:01, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

In reply to your message on my Talk page, the material you twice removed from the article on 18 March had been in the article for over a month, including some that had been in the article for at least several months. --Jagz (talk) 15:05, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

R&I article

Knock off the POV pusher rhetoric on the Talk page. You are using it as a personal attack. --Jagz (talk) 05:58, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

If I'm a POV pusher then you are a POV pusher. --Jagz (talk) 12:08, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Jagz, Ramdrake is a good and conscientious editor, interested in neutrality and rigor. Unfortunately I would not apply these words to your contributions to the R&I article and talk page. On the talk page your contributions can at best be described as inflammatory and hardly ever display any good faith. Given your predisposition to pov-pushing and supporting these povs with citations from the popular press rather than reliable sources I think Ramdrake is simply calling a spade a spade. As Ramdrake says, you seem to have a good reputation regarding your edits to articles relating to the scouting movement. Why don't you stick to editing articles you actually seem to know something about instead of trying to push your personal prejudices in this encyclopaedia? Alun (talk) 12:37, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Race and IQ

Your discussion with nick Connolly helped me craft my first proposal for an article on the popular controversy (i.e. the topic is the controversy over nature versus nurture but the topic is not any actual debate over nature vesus nurture) ... or something like that. The title I gave it is only provisioal. But do you think you and Nick Conolly could work toether to make it a reality? Slrubenstein | Talk 22:25, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Jagz' strategy is to get us bogged down on talk pages so no substantive work gets done. That is why I think your working on this article - not talk, the article itself - is the way to win. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

• Hi, I've expanded (and then expanded, and then expanded) my thoughts on guidlines for the aricle Guidelines for the Race-IQ edit war in my sandbox to reduce Talk Page clutter Nick Connolly —Preceding comment was added at 20:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

mediation request

can you write up a veru concise statement of the key issue(s) that need to be mediated, here? Slrubenstein | Talk 09:59, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

political scientist

Political scientist is better than pundit, which seemed a bit POV. Cheers! --Kevin Murray (talk) 12:47, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

• Pundit seems to carry a negative connotation. --Kevin Murray (talk) 12:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Request for mediation not accepted

A Request for Mediation to which you were are a party was not accepted and has been delisted. You can find more information on the case subpage, Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Race and intelligence 2. For the Mediation Committee, WjBscribe 14:30, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

This message delivered by MediationBot, an automated bot account operated by the Mediation Committee to perform case management.
If you have questions about this bot, please contact the Mediation Committee directly.

Jagz

My too but I am not sure how to phrase it/what to do. Certainly disruptive edits ... anyway, whatever you do I will support it. I am sick of this pattern of disrupting any constructive discussion, and when anyone calls him on it, he says he is being personally attacked. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:26, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Remember, I did an AN/I and left a message at Jimbo's talk page last week and nothing came of any of it ... Slrubenstein | Talk 11:48, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I would support an RfC on this user's behaviour. It can't be difficult to find examples of his trolling and he must have been warned at least twice for his attitude on talk pages, so I think if you wanted to start an RfC it shouldn't be a problem. What do you think? Alun (talk) 10:20, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Just ignore him. Firstly the disruption caused is only enhanced by lengthy responses. Secondly he could be legit, loud protests of persecution is common behaviour among those who advocate a race-intelligence link. Thirdly, honestly I think we are nearly there and I'm worried that this will just start yet another sideshow - causing further disruption of the kind you think Jagz is causing.Nick Connolly (talk) 20:43, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the root of the problem is that some editors are opposing a legitimate discussion of the genetic hypothesis rather than me trying to promote it as fact or trying to rid the article of environmental hypotheses. Maybe this has been the main problem for years, I don't know. --Jagz (talk) 02:43, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

The genetic hypothesis is a fringe viewpoint. It shouldn't and can't be discussed on equal footing with mainstream science, despite all your efforts to say the contrary.--Ramdrake (talk) 10:29, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

You are allowed to state that a hypothesis is fringe in the article if you can back it up with a specific citation and I suggest that you focus your efforts on doing that instead of castigating me. Regardless of any fringe claims, the genetic hypothesis is notable and should be presented in the article. The genetic hypothesis has, I believe, been in the article for years and I expect it will continue to be in the article indefinitely. --Jagz (talk) 14:56, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

It has been described dozens of times as racist science, and that is definitely fringe. Several such quotes have already been provided to you, but you chose to ignore them. You are entitled to your (dissenting) POV; however, you are not entitled to impose your POV on the other editors.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

In case you really need a concrete cite, here's one from CNN:

The Pioneer Fund is infamous not only for its funding of classic eugenics research in the pre-World War II era, but also for continued funding of opposition to civil rights and racist science. The current Pioneer director is University of Western Ontario psychologist J. Philippe Rushton. Rushton is best known for his advocacy of a theory correlating genital size inversely with intelligence and morality and parsing this by race.

Found here--Ramdrake (talk) 15:57, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Here is the link to the section. Now start editing.[5] --Jagz (talk) 17:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

To answer your question...

Your help in editing would be very welcome. On another note I read the Dysgenics article yesterday - ugh, I thought the race intelligence article had issues... I note you'd made some valiant attempts to get it on track. All of these article end up like a world-war battlefield; a muddy mess in which progress is random. Nick Connolly (talk) 23:38, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

• Welcome on board. Nick Connolly (talk) 19:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

German Remarks

Hi there, I have warned this user about the remarks he/she has made on the article I have also told the editor to stop and have issued them with a final warning for the remarks. Chris19910 (talk) 14:42, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I hope so too that it will work if it doesnt then I would leave it to one of the admins to block him indef and make sure that the account creation is blocked from that I.P address. Chris19910 (talk) 14:49, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Thule Society

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thule Society may be of interest.LeadSongDog (talk) 23:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

relations with nubia

i repeat give a valid reason why there should be a section about relations with nubia what does that have to do with the race of the egyptians now that this whole issue has been brough up--Wikiscribe (talk) 18:46, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd say Nubia is traditionally represented as a kingdom directly south of Egypt, whose people are also usually acknowledged as "Black" and several pharaohs seem to have claimed their roots from that region. I'd say that's reason enough not to exclude.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:03, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

re read your reason for why there should be a relations with nubia section,it does not matter if there were any nubian kings pryor to the 25th dynasty the article is about the race of the "egyptians" themselves not to point out if there were any nubian pharoahs because what does that have to do with the race of the egyptians,just as it does not matter there relationships with the ancient libyans, syrians,persians, greeks,minoans or people of punt etc etc--Wikiscribe (talk) 20:03, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, it is relevant in that it strongly suggests that the Egyptians were indeed what would be called by today's standards a racial mix. That is an important viewpoint in the debate. --Ramdrake (talk) 20:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

hello check out population characteristics--Wikiscribe (talk) 20:31, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

That section seems to support that viewpoint also. Is that what you were saying?--Ramdrake (talk) 20:38, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

ramdrake i dont care about a view point,but i think the population characteristics is a imporatant un biased section that gives a better idea about the racial population of the egyptians than having a section based on the relationship with nubia or any other relationship they had with in antiquity(in other words just because nubians were slaves in egypt does not make the egyptians not black like the nubians or just because they had a positive relationship with the nubians does not make the egyptians black either),that section is a double edged sword anyway and leads to innuendo about the race of the egyptians and about egypt being mixed race there is no doubt that egypt was mixed society but that does not mean everybody is a mixed race person either, but a relations with nubians might be good for the main article if there is not already one--Wikiscribe (talk) 21:03, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

R&I article

If you are going to participate in the article, please do more than revert other people's edits and criticize them. You seem to be holding yourself out as some type of neutral party but it clear that is not the case. Being a supporter of egalitarianism does not automatically make you neutral. --Jagz (talk) 19:02, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

• According to your recent edit summary, you didn't notice that I removed Murray from the sentence. --Jagz (talk) 02:36, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

IQ article

Your recent edit summary, "It still doesn't belong here. Bring it to RfC if you think you'll get a different result.", is misguided. Please familiarize yourself with what should be done prior to requesting a RfC here: [6]. Also, please familiarize yourself with the guidelines on wiki-stalking so it does not become a problem: [7]. --Jagz (talk) 21:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean you must warn me against edit-warring? --Jagz (talk) 21:17, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

You seem to have developed a pattern of reverting my edits in a manner that can perhaps be described as Wikipedia:Tendentious editing. Please stop it. --Jagz (talk) 21:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks, now I need to get used to being "officially" middle-aged. Alun (talk) 05:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Sidis IQ

The 250-300 IQ was based on hearsay from his sister after he died. In any case, it seems that you now have a ratio IQ score listed together with a standard deviation for a deviance IQ score. --Jagz (talk) 12:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Zoo

You reverted my removal of "important" and "basic" from Zoo saying in the Edit Summary "Those qualifiers seemed important. This isn't the Simple English Wikipedia".

The sentence concerned is “Important basic duties of zoo keepers include daily cleaning and maintenance of animal enclosures and proper feeding of the animals”. This is a good example of words in a sentence that add nothing to its meaning (which has nothing to do with Simple Wikipedia, we are just taking about good English here). Remove “important” and “basic” and has the meaning of the sentence changed? I say it has not. Since the duties of a keeper consist of mainly cleaning, maintenance and feeding then what does “important” mean? And “basic” has no meaning at all.

In the sentence “Some colleges offer specific programs oriented towards a career in zoos“ I took away “specific” and you added it back. Try reading the sentence with specific removed and the meaning does not change. because “oriented towards a career in zoos” means specific so the addition of “basic” is tautology.

Other words that can almost always be removed are various, many, and currently. Please don’t reply (unless you so wish) because our minds are not likely to meet on this topic - Adrian Pingstone (talk) 15:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

R&I paragraph

The last paragraph of the "Contemporary issues" section is substandard and I don't care who wrote it. Let's focus on trying to improve it. --Jagz (talk) 12:07, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I apologize if my tone sounded annoyed in my comment to you. In fact I was annoyed, but unjustly. Related -- I don't have a clue what to say in response to SLR's tirade. I don't want to give him the impression that I concede his point, but I can't see any progress coming from further discussion. --Legalleft (talk) 03:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

PETA euth stats

Hi - I like the way you adjusted this to include total numbers. It makes the figures easier to understand, which they certainly have to be considering how much attention they get!Bob98133 (talk) 13:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

No Kill Shelters

I think I added some of the criticism to the No Kill Shelter page. The first time I looked at it, it was just fluff about no kill. If I recall, some of it was even verbatim from Nathan Winograd's web page (the main proponent of no-kill) PETA seemed like the major detractor/antagonist in the kill/no kill debate, so I probably relied more on those pages than I should have. This is another hot-button article like the PETA page. If you can find ways to add better balance, please do. I did revert your minor addition about Thompkins though, just because they say they are no-kill (or trying to be) on their web site.Bob98133 (talk) 17:10, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

And as per your talk page, I'm fine with the reversion; I just wasn't aware of their individual stance.--Ramdrake (talk) 17:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Dysgenics

Hi; I wanted to take this to your talk page because I can see that it's important to cultivate some sort of understanding. My first "general edit" wasn't a revert; I actually incorporated some suggestions made by Mrsadriankaur in that edit. The second time I gave it the same name so it would be clear that I was taking it back there.

I'll be frank in telling you that, while I may take a different position on the article, I have no problem with you or the edits you're making, and I really do think you can help improve the article. Rather, I'm tired of, and fed up with, Wsiegmund, who has been coming up with inconsistent complaints about the article for months in what really looks like nothing more than an attempt to bury it. There was a time when I thought little of Wikipedia; however, I have had positive experiences working on other articles, and my finding is that the assumption of good faith is critical to collaboration. I really don't like reverting or deleting material made by other users (see for instance Talk:Political_spectrum#Suggested_Rewrite) but be aware that I believe Wsiegmund's edits in dysgenics amount essentially to vandalism. Harkenbane (talk) 19:53, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi there! I notice you have an interest in this topic, and I want to make sure that you know I am not going out of my way to be a jerk regarding my edits. I placed a version of the following message on the talk pages before I found that users have their own talk pages:

There appears to be some sensitivity with respect to this topic, which I think is due to an anthropomorphic bias. Dysgenics is a research topic in biology; the anthropological and sociocultural aspects are not central to the topic. The concerns listed in the heading paragraph belong lower in the text, as they apply only to the aspect of the term relating to homo sapiens.

The concept of dysgenics itself is really only at home in a discussion of genotype. Direct anthropomorphic considerations (of the sociopolitical aspects outlined in the article) are very crude constructions which do not hew to the precise biological use of the term. I think one danger is that, by focusing on the easily politicized extension of the term, we risk conflating an important biological concept with indirect sociological constructions. Next thing you know, biologists innocently researching fruit flies get implicated in fascism, eugenics, and gas chambers. So I agree that we need to make very careful use of these terms. These concepts, while connected to a degree, should be covered carefully.

I agree that the Lynn character you reference is a total nut; however, he is not representative of the biological field, but instead only of the fringe of social sciences. If you want an example of dysgenics applied directly to human populations that is not fringe social science, look over http://www.springerlink.com/content/y73202341630112v/. We have to obviously be very careful how these concepts are treated, as I mentioned above. I hope we can come to some sort of agreement on this issue, and make sure science articles in Wikipedia offer complete, unbiased information. It would be a good idea to sequester the fringe sociological aspects to subsections where disputes will not tarnish the biological discussion. 137.186.41.143 (talk) 23:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

R&I

Thanks! --Kevin Murray (talk) 19:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I've warned Rubidium37 about 3RR, but you need to be cautious as well. Dreadstar † 22:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Considering the long history of persistent uncivil and personal attacks, I've blocked Jagz for 24 hours. Dreadstar † 21:49, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Re strange

Of course you could be correct about these two users, but there's not a great deal of evidence for sockpuppetry. Getting convincing evidence for sockpuppetry is always difficult. When User:KarenAE first started editing I was convinced s/he was a sockpuppet of User:Lukas19 (this was also User:Thulean, but that was a legitimate name change [8]), but although I started a sockpuppet case, and although everyone who contributed to the case was of the opinion that KarenAE was probably Lukas19 the case was rejected due to a lack of hard evidence and a negative checkuser result (see Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Lukas19). Of course eventually it was found that User:KarenAE and User:KarenAER were both socks of Lukas19 and they were banned due to Lukas19's ban by the arbitration committee (see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Lukas19-LSLM#Lukas19_banned). So sockpuppetry can be a very difficult thing to show convincingly. I tend to think this is a good thing, many editors do share similar opinions and beliefs, often editors are so wedded to their beliefs that they are only interested in pushing those beliefs, it's a matter of faith for them. I do share your concerns, but I'm not convinced a sockpuppet case will produce the desired result unless we get a clear checkuser match.

On the Jagz front, it appears his behaviour is becoming even more erratic than previously, I checked his contributions for yesterday and they are utterly unproductive and rather incoherent.[9] [10] [11] [12] [13] He displays all of the behaviour of a petulant child "throwing his toys out of the pram". I'm reminded of Violet Elizabeth Bott from Just William who, when she didn't get her own way, would threaten to "thcream and thcream 'till I'm thick" (she had a lisp). Still hang in there, any more of his childishness and he's bound to get a longer ban. Cheers. Alun (talk) 05:21, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

You might be interested in this] sockpuppet case regarding Zero g and Rhubidium37. Don't know if you want to add Jagz to the case? Might be worth a shot considering it's going to checkuser? All the best. Alun (talk) 07:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello

Hello Ramdrake. I have decided I am going to try writing a new article on race and intelligence since the current one is so dreadful. If you have any suggestions, they would be gratefully received.

I saw your recent revert on the article, by the way, and I agree with you that it is self-evident that belief in a correlation between race and intelligence relies on an acceptance of those two assumptions. I have a feeling, though, that the 'cite' tags were there for:

• a citation that the assumptions are controversial in their own right - which to be fair probably does need a citation, though it would be easy to find; and
• a citation that the assumptions are questioned by 'a significant number of SMEs'; again, citing that shouldn't be a problem, though it is the sort of thing that should be cited.

Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how I read it. --Plusdown (talk) 11:22, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Blond

Kudos on your intelligent solution to the image issue in Blond. I wish I'd been smart enough to think of it! rewinn (talk) 03:09, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

OK

Sorry about that, I wasn't aware that it was a direct quote. I'm quite ambivalent about this definition. I know it comes from Encarta, but it seems just plain odd to me. Because I'm a biologist the claim that "genetically well-adapted" members of a group of organisms would "decrease in the survival" seems at odds with any conventional understanding of selection. I think of it this way, a well adapted organism will always have an adaptive advantage compared to a less well adapted organism, indeed we usually see that all members of a population are well adapted, stable populations have adapted to their environment over the course of many thousands of generations and so as long as their environment remains unchanged, the will remain well adapted. In Drosophila species there is a phenotype with a vestigial wing that is used in breeding experiments, especially for students to study Mendelian genetics. Of course we select for these vestigial wing phenotypes dysgenically, but in the "wild" these individuals would probably not last long enough to reproduce because they cannot fly, they probably get gobbled up quite quickly. Interestingly enough in Drosophila behaviour we see that even in a controlled environment these individuals don't have very good reproductive success because part of Drosophila courtship behaviour is the "scisoring" of the wing towards the potential mate, and of course these poor little guys only have a small appendage to wave at their potential mate. In Drosophila biology size really does matter (at least in wings anyway)!! The dysgenic argument for human populations is that the environment has changed, and that traits that were previously selected for by the environment (e.g. "intelligence") are no longer under selection. This means that organisms that possess this trait no longer have an advantage over their competitors that do not have this trait, because the environment no longer confers an advantage. I think my view is a standard view of biological selection, but the Encarta quote doesn't really convey this meaning. Think of it this way.

Diagram attempting to illustrate this.

If I have a culture of bacteria which contains a mixture of two types of bacteria, one with a resistance gene for the antibiotic ampicillin (a standard antibiotic used in clonal selection), the other type of bacterium doesn't possess this resistance. I plate part of this culture on an nutrient agar plate containing ampicillin and the rest on a plate with no ampicillin. The bacteria on the plate containing ampicillin all have the resistance gene, because the ampicillin containing environment selects against the bacterial cells that don't contain the resistance gene, they do not grow. The second plate is still a mixture of bacterial types because neither has a selective advantage. In the terms of "human dysgenics" the non-antibiotic plate is a dysgenic environment and the antibiotic plate is an eugenic environment. What they really mean is not that selection is against a trait, but that selection for the trait no exists in the environment. Of course the whole argument is a fallacy because we don't know the factors that select for human "intelligence" and there's no evidence that universal health care, universal suffrage, universal access to education, equal opportunities or the relatively low birth rate amongst the wealthy will have any effect on the intelligence of the population at all. Anyway I've whittered enough, I may have some sources that give a better definition of dysgenics as it is used by these wingbat pseudoscientists, I'll have a bit of a look through the literature I have at home. Take care. Alun (talk) 14:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

ANI thread - Jagz

File:ANI lolcat.jpg

Hi Ramdrake I'm notifying you of this since it involves you and since you have been mentioned (if not by name) by Plusdown there--Cailil ^talk 00:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello!

Hello! Are you interested in a serious Wikimeetup? --Creamy!^Talk 01:50, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the warning about my overly verbose responses. I know I can go on a bit, mainly it's down to trying to be specific and accurate about what I am trying to say. But you're right I should try to keep my responses shorter. I really don't hink Legalleft has got a leg to stand on, his contention of a synthesis is just plain daft, the cites I 'v included explicitly say the same as the article says, indeed I included quotes from these cites in the footnotes section of the article just so there was no doubt that what the article says is exactly what the lead says. Alun (talk) 06:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

when you have 20 minutes

can you read and comment here? I expressed a concern about the article, and dab and Pelle Smith misinterpret my words to mean the opposite of what I thought I was saying. So i either really am not expressing myself well, or something else is going on in the "discussion." I am not asking you to pick a side, but i am hoping you can read through it, identify the source of misunderstanding, and put the discussion back on track. thanks Slrubenstein | Talk 11:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - it is possible that we hve moved beyon it but I kind of doubt it as these kinds of conflicts or confusions have a habit of coming back ... so I still appreciate your reading over it when you have time and providing your own account of the conflict/debate. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:48, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Many thanks for undoing the vandalism on my user page - I hadn't even noticed. Elonka not unexpectedly has misinterpreted this friendly edit on WP:AN/I. Apparently she has identified you as an "opponent" of the perpetrator. I have no idea what she thinks she's up to. Cheers, Mathsci (talk) 07:17, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

As requested

Alright, you asked for me to provide details,[14] so here goes. Please do not take this as an attack, but instead what you asked for, which is for me to lay out my concerns, and offer constructive criticism on how you can improve.

It is my opinion that you (and a couple other editors) have been doggedly pursuing Jagz to the point of harassment. Even though he is currently blocked, you are continuing to scrutinize his edits.[15] Further, when you provide diffs of his misdeeds, you often include hyperbolic statements to "spin" things as worse than they actually are.[16] It is also a concern that over the last few days, that you have been doing effectively nothing on Wikipedia except pursuing this course against Jagz: Ramdrake (talk · contribs).

When you have provided diffs about Jagz's actions, I have not found the diffs compelling, and I have found your overstatement of what they actually contain, to make it difficult to listen seriously to the rest of it. For example, when you removed Jagz's comment from Mathsci's talkpage, with an edit summary of "vandalism", this was excessive.[17] Also, do you see the double standard here, where when Mathsci used that same image on Jagz,[18] you saw it as acceptable, but when Jagz passed the same image back to Mathsci's talkpage, you called it vandalism? This kind of thing demonstrates that you are having trouble looking at Jagz's edits in an evenhanded manner, and it weakens everything else that you say about him. Going back further, this kind of comment is troublesome: "Can someone else remind Jagz about AGF?" It is not a mature way to state things. Further, when I looked into Jagz's accusation, it was accurate, because Slrubenstein does call people racists and trolls. Yet you seem quick to attack Jagz for his statements, but you do not challenge Slrubenstein for equal or greater incivility. If you want to have a stronger voice in these discussions, you need to treat infractions fairly. Don't just jump on someone who disagrees with you, while supporting the same behavior in someone who agrees with you. I would see exchanges on the talkpage at R&I where people were sniping at Jagz, he would respond in kind, and then you'd accuse him of trolling,[19] but have no comments for the others who were being uncivil. I am not saying that Jagz was innocent here, but there was clearly disruptive behavior on the part of multiple editors.

I would also point out that some of my first interactions with you, were that you were complaining about the way that the page was being archived.[20] As I pointed out to you then, that you would react with that much negativity simply because an admin adjusted an archive bot once a month, implied someone who was paying toooo much attention to a talkpage. What it was looking like to me, was that a certain group of editors (yourself included) had decided to "camp" on the R&I article, and were looking with suspicion at any outsider who dared to venture into the page, even for such a minor thing as archiving. Combine that with some of the extraordinarily negative statements that were being made by other editors, and it was clear to me that the environment at R&I had become toxic. Your own comments definitely were not the worst of the batch, but they were a part of the problem.

In terms of moving forward, if you would like to continue monitoring Jagz's edits (and I don't recommend it, but I'm betting it will be a tough addiction to break), and you see things that you feel are problematic, you are welcome to bring them to my talkpage. However, please try to resist the temptation to spin everything you see. Instead, concentrate on a few diffs which are specific policy violations, and present them in a neutral manner. Avoid name-calling, and try not to dwell on anything which you see as an attack directed at yourself. Instead, focus on unambiguous policy violations. If you can provide diffs that show Jagz (or anyone) misinterpreting sources, deleting sourced information, being uncivil, and so forth, present them, but just present them in a neutral manner, not in a vindictive tone. Also, when you do engage in tracking someone else's contribs, it is important that you find a balance. Try to keep no more than 50% of your edits in the area of dispute, and ensure that you are spending time doing other things on Wikipedia as well. When I find myself getting too emotionally invested in a particular controversy, I will often go work on something in a backlogged cleanup category, such as Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup. Or I'll format references on some random article. These kinds of small changes can be very therapeutic, and they help "break up" your contrib list so that you don't look single-minded on one particular issue.

Hope that helps, --Elonka 03:28, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

(With apologies to the other editors for inserting at this point in the chain, but I feel it is important)

Elonka, let's take your objections one by one:

• 1)Over the "last few days", I've had a lot of work to do "in the real world", so I've had less time to devote to contributing to Wikipedia. However, I felt it was important to follow this specific ANI thread, because I was familiar with Jagz' pattern of editing.
• 2)I happened to see Jagz' comment on his talk page, while this ANI was going on and while according to you "he'd made a lot of progress". This edit is a direct, unsubstantiated attack (no diffs) on 3 other editors
• 3)I've asked for someone else to ask him to AGF, as I know I would only get insults or smart remarks from him if I pointed this out to him.
• 4)The list I provided of his edits since he was topic-banned was as a counterpoint to your statement that "he's made a lot of progress since being topic-banned". To me, that indicates he hasn't made any progress.
• 5)Mathsci's original posting of the Cheshire cat image was to the R&I talk page, not to Jagz' talk page. Then, when Mathsci announced his retirement, Jagz posted the same image 1)to Mathsci's user page (twice) 2)to Mathsci's talk page (twice, I believe) and 3)to his own user page, under the section header "Mathsci has retired". Now, call me old-fashioned, but I take objection to someone posting a comment which can certainly be construed as derogatory to someone's user page, when that person has retired and may no longer be able to remove such derogatory comments. To me, it is very much like spraying graffiti on a grave, i.e. vandalism. Also, the very fact that the image was posted and reposted on three different pages by Jagz is proof enough that this was a deliberate act intended to provoke a negative reaction. If it wasn't intended to be, he'd have understood that the gesture was taken as offensive by some and not repeated it. I don't have to tell you how Wikipedia defines "something done deliberately to provoke a negative reaction", as you've already quoted yourself recently.
• 6)Your point about my initial objection to your adjusting the archive setting of the talk page has nothing to do with the Jagz situation, it is a non-sequitur. Also, for the record, I withdrew my initial objection.
• 7)Overall, you seem to miss the point that the issue with Jagz' behaviour wasn't one of civility, it was one of disruptive editing. Whatever lack of civility happened thereafter was once he had exhausted the community's patience, as pointed out by Mastcell [21].

I could go on somewhat longer, but I think I've answered your main points.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:35, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Ramdrake, again, you are overstating the case. If you actually look at Jagz's contribs, and try to provide diffs for your claims above, you will see that your claims are inaccurate. --Elonka 15:03, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Of course the other explanation is that Ramdrake didn't know that mathsci had posted the same image on Jagz's talk page, and therefore was unaware that Jagz was acting in good faith, he may just have seen what he thought was an editor gloating. Jagz has a longstanding habit of posting images on talk pages as some sort of negative comment about a user he is in dispute with, ideed there is an example in the list I give of Jagz's behaviour on the AN/I thread. Alun (talk) 05:49, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Ramdrake was actively involved in the discussion where the image was first used.[22][23] --Elonka 06:10, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, I didn't know. Alun (talk) 06:15, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Hold on there, Elonka, I did not post this image to Jagz's talk page. Searching through my history and the history of Jagz's talk page I last edited Jagz's talk page on January 11. The use of the images on the talk page of Race and intelligence, first from Alice through the Looking Glass (the Red Queen lecturing Alice) and then fromAlice in Wonderland (the Cheshire Cat), was to lighten the atmosphere after Jagz had started a surreal new section claiming that the article was in a finished state. Jagz simply vandalised my user page - I have never made a similar edit to his or any other wikipedia editor's page. Could Elonka please refactor her highly misleading comments? Mathsci (talk) 07:45, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe I ever said anything about Jagz's talkpage. But the image was very clearly posted by Mathsci to Jagz. The diff is obviously of the talkpage at R&I, but that does not change the targeted nature of it.[24] Mathsci said that Jagz was going to "disappear" and posted an image of a Cheshire Cat. When Mathsci "retired" (again), Jagz posted the image on Mathsci's page, obviously implying that Mathsci disappeared first. It may have been misguided humor, but it wasn't vandalism. --Elonka 08:15, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

So I was correct to some extent, Mathsci never did post this image to Jagz's talk page and Ramdrake's response was appropriate. Jagz posted this image to Mathsci's user page (this can be seen as a simple mistake, Jagz has said that it was not meant as vandalism) and then to his talk page, but Mathsci never posted this image to Jagz's page. Jagz has claimed that Mathsci posted this image "in response to my leaving".[25] But Mathsci didn't say it was in response to Jagz leaving and that it was in response to Jagz's claim that the article was "essentially complete", as evidenced by where Mathsci placed the image, this comment about the article being complete created bemusement all around. I suppose it's reasonable to take Jagz at his word that he didn't mean to be provocative. Alun (talk) 08:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I was unaware that editors could edit other editors' User pages, unless invited to do so. I have no idea how Elonka knows that Jagz's posting on my User page was "misguided humour". Has Jagz told her so? I personally did not see it before its removal, because I was marking Part III exams in Cambridge. I do not take any of Jagz's attempted insults ("Mathsci is French") seriously, although I'm sure I should. (BTW MastCell used the word "vandalizing" in his block summary [26].) Jagz had announced his retirement from editing R&I in an edit summary on the mainspace article; my remark was in parantheses. I wonder at this stage whether it might be possible to regain some sense of proportion? When an editor starts a section proclaiming that a WP article is "essentially complete", they clearly have misunderstood the nature of WP. That is what my own response at the time politely pointed out. In such circumstances, the original edit was disruptive. Mathsci (talk) 08:56, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Jagz said it was done in jest.[27] --Elonka 09:04, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but after the event and after having been blocked. He provided no edit summary at the time to indicate his frivolous state of mind. Any mentor should firmly caution him against editing User pages, unless invited. When the image was removed from my User page, why was it also posted on my talk page? Does the joke become funnier the second time it's heard? I think User:Moonriddengirl, who monitored Race and intelligence until February, might be a good choice of mentor.Mathsci (talk) 09:29, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

domestication, extinct in the wild

Hi, Ramdrake, I think this guy must be screwing around. In the domestication article it clearly states that domesticated animals can also exist in the wild; and explains what extinct in the wild means, so maybe this guy just doesn't get it. It sounds like English might be his second language, so I suppose I should cut him some slack, but he's so insistent.Bob98133 (talk) 18:14, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

"Ostensible" white race

Please see my explanation at Talk:White race. A response would be welcome. I'm not undoing your edit, but I'd appreciate more of an explanation than one that says, in effect, "I'm removing this word because I think the word shouldn't be here." - Jmabel | Talk 23:40, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd really rather have a discussion than anything with even the potential to become an edit war, but as far as I can tell you still have not explained your edit. I think I laid out pretty carefully the basis on which I disagree. - Jmabel | Talk 06:48, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought I already answered. In my book, "ostensible" has a meaning of for show, which is different than the meaning you seem to assign to it (and which is why I found it incomprehensible initially). Maybe then an alternate epithet would work?--Ramdrake (talk) 10:21, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

That is one of this meanings, but here I intended it in its other meaning, which the Merriam-Webster gives as "being such in appearance : plausible rather than demonstrably true or real <the ostensible purpose for the trip>" which seems to me to be precisely correct. Can you suggest another word? (probably best answered at Talk:White people, apparently moved since I started this discussion). - Jmabel | Talk 17:13, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

RfC for Race of Ancient Egyptians

An RfC for this article has begun and I just thought that I'd let you know. I have no idea if I did it correctly but it needed to be done. Thanks. --Woland (talk) 18:56, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Dysgenics

Don't let your personal views obstruct the creation of a good article. You've mentioned that dysgenics is a fringe theory while offering no source to show that to be true. In fact, a significant segment of anthropologists believe that the gradual erosion of human intelligence is a real and inexorable trend. Many more believe that Richard Lynn's theories are, as a whole, accurate. [28] It is clearly a theory that may not be entirely mainstream, but does not stray far. Verwoerd (talk) 20:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I might point out that citing Mankind Quarterly, a publication funded by the right wing "hate group"^[29] the Pioneer Fund diminishes your claims to the academic mainstream rather than bolster it. Alun (talk) 20:44, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

It is peer reviewed, which is the hallmark of good science articles. Mankind quarterly is not at all biased, despite contrasting with your own personal beliefs. The sheer circulation and repute of Mankind quarterly places it not far from the mainstream. EgraS (talk) 22:16, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but Roger Pearson is the director of the Institute for the Study of Man, which owns Mankind Quarterly (Pearson is officially the editor, so you'll excuse me if I'm not exactly convinced this specific article was very much peer-reviewed. In any case, that's one anthropologist's view, out of tens of thousands of anthropologist just in the USA. Une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps!--Ramdrake (talk) 22:41, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Besides, the article discusses Richard Lynn's thesis on racial differences in intelligence levels, not dysgenics per se. So, I fail to see a strong link there.--Ramdrake (talk) 22:45, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

It depends what you consider "peer review" Egra, if you consider it proper peer review practice for the same set of people that hold the same or similar right wing political agendas to peer review each other's work, then you are correct. To me this represents little more than a cabal of pseudoscientists supporting each others work. Mainstream peer reviewed academic journals use a broad spectrum of reviewers and don't depend upon a set of reviewers that comprises only members or former members of the editorial board of the journal. Usually the reliability of a journal is determined by it's impact factor in academic circles. Mankind Quarterly has a pathetic impact factor of 0.043, lower than that the publications Voprosy Psikhologii, Media Studies Journal, Policing even The American Journal of Art Therapy has an impact factor of 0.062. Indeed it comes thirteenth from bottom of a list of Psychology journals by impact factor.[30] [31] It's certainly not the sort of place one would publish academic literature if one had good solid experimental data because with good data one would want and expect to be able to publish in a journal with a high impact factor. Indeed the impact factor of journals directly affect funding for scientists, scientists with a reputation for publishing in high impact factor magazines are more likely to get grant funding etc. For example Nature Genetics has an impact factor of 25.556 "This places Nature Genetics first out of 132 journals in the field of genetics and heredity."[32] Alun (talk) 06:06, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

If there is disagreement about whether or not Mankind Quarterly is a reliable source, I recommend starting a thread at the Reliable sources noticeboard. --Elonka 03:41, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessarily about reliability Elonka. MQ is probably as reliable as any other magazine when it comes to citing the fact that human intellectual dysgenesis has been postulated. Verwoerd and Egra are using this journal as evidence that human intellectual dysgenics is not fringe. But the journal itself is not a mainstream academic journal, it has a very low impact factor and in reality highlights the fringe nature of the subject, because it is only discussed in relatively low impact and low prestige journals. For the purposes of citing research into dysgenics or for citing the claims of people studying dysgenic trends, then the journal is fine, but it cannot possibly be used as evidence for this subject being mainstream, or as evidence that this subject is not fringe. That's the point I was trying to make. Alun (talk) 13:03, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Verwoerd, your source, Roger Pearson, according to his article here, founded the Northern League "to foster the interests, friendship and solidarity of all Teutonic nations. He recruited Hans F. K. Günther, who received awards under the Nazi regime for his work on race, Ernest Cox of the Ku Klux Klan, and Dr. Wilhelm Kesserow, a former SS officer." Your source is from 1991, before the publication of Lynn's dysgenics book and papers and is not pertinent to the opinion of that work. I have shown on the Dysgenics talk page that, since 2000, less than two independent journal papers per year cite the research of Lynn or Vining on dsygenics. One of these was also published in MQ. This research is demonstrably fringe and not very notable. May I add that alleging that others are editing based on "personal views" is not helpful. Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:16, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

(unindent/ec) Here is a published criticism of Mankind Quarterly in MAN, a journal published by the Royal Anthropological Institute, by a member of the Honorary Advisory Board of MQ. Severely criticizing some of the contributions in the first issue (1960) he writes that they "seem to show such little concern for facts and to be so distorted by racial prejudice that I cannot allow them to stand without the most vigorous protest." This phrase was an excerpt from a letter written to the editor of MQ; subsequent interchanges with the editor are summarised, prior to the resignation of the author (an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute from former Yugolsavia). There were a further five pages of equally harsh criticism in 1962 in Current Anthropology [33] by three other anthropologists; all this was prior to the establishment of the Pioneer Fund and the transfer of the journal to the USA. This response from senior academics indicates that from the very start the journal had problems that no mainstream journal would normally expect. It might be appropriate to make a detailed record of such published criticisms in the main space article on Mankind Quarterly. (Please note that MAN and Current Anthropology are mainstream academic journals, hosted by Jstor.) Mathsci (talk) 06:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Edit conflict

Yes, I understand there are POV issues, but if you want my help on the article, please don't cause me to lose time-consuming ref cleanup work to edit conflicts by editing while I have placed an {{inuse}} template on the article. I try to work to keep the article and citations clean, and that is how I begin to get a sense of where the POV is coming from; having edit conflicts while I'm trying to clean up and after I've placed an inuse tag isn't helpful. Thank you, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:52, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't usually forget things :-) Thanks for the apology. The way I work is that I first clean up the article; after that, the source of the problems usually becomes apparent rather quickly. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:01, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't usually miss the Wiki dynamics either :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:10, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

By the way, when did Elonka become a biology, medical or genetics expert ? Nothing written by one editor on a talk page is set in stone; asking the other parent isn't always wrong. I haven't seen the sources and I am certainly not an expert in the field, but I don't suspect Elonka is either, based on her bio. Maybe we'll get lucky and Tim Vickers will take an interest; collaborative editing without edit conflicts is the way to encourage more interest in the article. I also find more editors are usually willing to work on cleaner articles, which is why I first work to get the article in decent shape. POV will sort itself out over time, by encouraging high-quality participation. If POV-pushing and impatient editing prevails, most people with a brain and an interest in self-preservation just unwatch. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Do you have those Nature articles mentioned on the talk page? That would be the way to cut through this quickly. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:28, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

(Let's avoid the ping-pong, shall we?) I looked at the links. The Science article seems to be about Shockley being turned down by the NAS to do research on dysgenics. The Nature article isn't at all about dysgenics, they just mention the word in passing. It's about the heritability of IQ, and suggests that heritability of IQ may be lower than is thought in mainstream circles. However, I don't have subscriptions for either, so this is what I garner from reading the abstracts.--Ramdrake (talk) 22:35, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I can take a look at these articles in work tomorrow, I get access to Nature and Science in work but not at home. My original point in mentioning these articles was to show such a paucity of articles that mention dysgenics in these journals, and the fact that neither have mentioned dysgenics in over ten years, is direct evidence that this is a fringe theory and that there is certainly no scientific consensus that this is a trend in the human population. I'm baffled as to why anyone would claim that this theory has a scientific consensus when it is clearly limited to third rate low impact factor journals, and there's clearly no cross-discipline support for it. I can see no evidence of a consensus within any academic discipline. Even the publication Intelligence (journal) (cited in the article) has a low impact factor of 1.844 (below even The Journal of ECT (that's electric shock therapy. [34])). [35] I'm going to try and sleep now. Alun (talk) 22:55, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah. Too bad those articles might not pan out. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:01, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, the Nature article may have something to say about dysgenics; it's just not the central piece, and I can't tell because I only can access the abstract.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:04, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Devlin, B., Daniels, M., & Roeder, K. (1997) The heritability of IQ. Nature 1997;388:468-471, has been cited about 1500 times since publication according to Google Scholar.[36] It seems to be a much better source on this topic than "R. Lynn (1996) Dysgenics: Genetic deterioration in modern populations or Lynn and Van Court (2004) "New evidence of dysgenic fertility for intelligence in the United States ". A similar search finds 27 and 9 citations of the Lynn works respectively, a significant fraction of which are book reviews and self-citations.[37][38]

My impression is that Lynn and his collaborators favor a rather high correlation coefficient for the heritability of IQ. Devlin et al., in their much cited paper, argue for a low value pointing out that in studies of twins separated at birth, the twins share the same environment prior to birth. Devlin et al. say that this shared environment contributes 20% of the covarience with IQ "heritability being less than 50%".[39]

One important development that has gained increasing attention within the last five years is the role of environmental womb effects (EWE) on human development. These would include fetal exposure to nutrients, toxins, and hormones. One of the ways in which genetic contributions to intelligence are measured is by looking at the similarity of IQ in identical twins (who share all their genes) who have been reared apart. Herrnstein and Murray (1994) recognized that such twins would also share a womb environment, and Gardner (1995) discussed development in utero in his review of TBC. However, it was apparently not until an article by Devlin, Daniels, and Roeder (1997) that EWE were quantified and presented to a wide scientific audience.[40]

--Walter Siegmund (talk) 01:06, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Archiving assistance

Hi Ramdrake, would it be okay if I setup an archivebot on your page? It's currently at 150K, and some people's browsers start having trouble with anything over 32K. Let me know, --Elonka 20:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, yes, you'd be more than welcome. Thanks for the offer!--Ramdrake (talk) 20:07, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Done.  :) I did an initial archive of the 2007 threads, and set up a bot with a 90-day cutoff. It'll probably kick in within the next 24 hours. Feel free to tweak it to a different time delay, salt and season to taste.  :) --Elonka 20:14, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Human

Thought I'd let you know that there has been an attempt to include "dysgenics" on the Human article. I find this completely out of order, firstly although this concept can be considered notable with respect to ideas such as eugenics, R&I etc. it is certainly not notable with regards to the human article. Secondly this is so fringe that inclusion in the human article, as if it were a major source of research in the study of humans (medicine, anthropology, human biology) is ludicrous. Thought you might like to know where this is being steered.[41] Finally there is bias in the way this has been portrayed, the citation for continued human "evolution" is from the NYTimes, hardly a reliable source, then the claim of "dysgenesis" is made immediately after, a clear synthesis. All the best. Alun (talk) 05:27, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Yep, just saw that this morning. I'll keep an eye on it. I especially liked the addition of it is also shown that evolutionary pressures are different between races too. Talk about POV pushing.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:37, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion

Hello. I do not think Muntuwandi's objections to the section in European ethnic groups are justified. For some reason he is attacking articles written by dab. However, he is one of the editors responsible for the mess on Race of ancient Egyptians. How can articles on a European topic not be eurocentric? What dab wrote is uncontentious and is easy to support from sources, such as history books. So I suggest that, rather than reinstating tags, we just supply the sources, with possible modifications to the text as required. This is a straightforward WP article and we should make every possible effort to keep it that way. Best, Mathsci (talk) 23:10, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not really in with his charge of eurocentricity. I for one believe the section on pan-european identity should stay, although it needs to be referenced.

The part about European diasporas outside of Europe, approached from a "colonialist" point of view, I'm much less hot about. Makes it sound like Europe's legacy to the world was colonialism (ugh!).

The sentence "The culture of Europe might better be described as a series of overlapping cultures." also absolutely needs attribution somewhere. Without it, it looks somewhere betwee OR and editorializing.

As you can see, I'm not against such a section per se, but I think it needs to be seriously reworked. Finding sources for the different statements is probably the best start. Just my tuppence, though; I certainly won't go to war over this.--Ramdrake (talk) 01:06, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it's best to say that during the Age of Discovery and later, European countries established settlements extensively elsewhere, spreading their languages and other aspects of European culture. The section is there to explain how and why European ethnic groups, with their languages and customs, spread throughout the world, and why people elsewhere consider themselves European (or of European descent). The effect on indigenous inhabitants during this period is a separate issue. I have started adding potential sources to the bibliography. Cheers, Mathsci (talk) 06:11, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

My personal problem with this is that I don't know that there is such a thing as "European culture". These colonial powers spread aspects of their own cultures, but the resultant cultures were not clones of any specific European culture. Citiznes of the USA who speak English as a native language are not ethnically English, citizens of South and Central Amrican countries that speak Spanish are not ethnically Spanish, and citizens of Brazil are not ethnically Portugese. They may speak these languages, and some aspects of the colonial cultures may persist, but clearly these cultures are different and unique.

Another fundamental problem with this synthesis is that it attempts to portray ethnicity as if it is hierarchical, but exceptional claims require exceptional sources. I'm not saying that some European people do not identify to a certain degree as European, I sometimes identify as European to a certain extent, but that doesn't mean that I think that being Welsh represents a sub-set of a larger British or European ethnic identity, my European identity is not ethnic in origin. It may be possible to categorise languages hierarchically, but ethnicity and culture are not so neatly pigeonholed. Welshness is not a sub-identity of Britishness, Britishness is not a sub-identity of Europeaness.

There was an attempt about 18 months ago to turn the White people article into an ethnic group article byt User:Lukas19, with all sorts of edits trying to portray so called western "civilisation" as "white" and "European" as white. Someone pointed out that this is a white nationalist ploy, to portray white or European people as if they are somehow an "indigenous ethnic group". To me this looks suspiciously similar. we are bound by policies that require us to use verifiable sources and these apply to everyone. I do not think that WP:CN applies to contentious claims like this. Alun (talk) 07:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Vote at Fête nationale du Québec (Saint Jean Baptiste Day)

Hi, I've set up a vote to try and resolve this here. As you've commented on the issue already, I wanted to ensure you take the opportunity to vote. Gabrielthursday (talk) 01:10, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Race

I noticed that my edits were being reverted. Race is certainly a concept that has much credibility and a minority say that race is just a social concept. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rushlow (talk • contribs) 22:03, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Human

You mentioned that the sources are poor, but that section on human is not exclusively about dysgenics. There are articles on Science, an journal of considerable repute, that mention this finding, yet you are deleting the entire section. I am not in a mood to fight, but instead of accusing me of being another user to stifle me, why not talk about the validity or lack thereof, of what was changed. I think you are overreacting. Verwoerd (talk) 23:42, 9 July 2008 (UTC) [42] [43]

Conga rats

"Conga rats!" is an old meme from the rec.arts.sf.fandom Usenet newsgroup, for a long time my online home. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:35, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

With musical accompaniment from Los Congueros de Hamelin! --Orange Mike | Talk 14:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Sphynx (cat)

I understand why you deleted it, but it did have a reference. I don’t know how to get this book (that I got the reference from) into the References. I would appreciate the help if you could help me. Although if you are wondering what the reference is it is the new encyclopedia of the cat.--Talon (talk) 14:41, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

you %$@!* crake!

How dare you change my edit! You POV-pushing crake! You know, I have not got many edits which makes me a newbie if you think about it hard wnough so STOP BITING ME!!! Slrubenstein | Talk 13:28, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay! Peace, pax, I give up! Before someone takes this to ArbCom!! ;-) Slrubenstein | Talk 14:21, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi

Excellent thanks, though it's always a bit weird going home to Wales, I'm never sure if I'm foreign there or here! Alun (talk) 19:49, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, here, you missed a nice debate about Dysgenics, and also missed Slrubenstein calling me a "crake" ;>>> --Ramdrake (talk) 20:41, 25 July 2008 (UTC)