User talk:Tim Smith

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Contents 1 Welcome 2 3RR 3 Threats 4 Re: AFD closure (CTMU) 5 Mega Society 6 Userfy 7 CTMU DRV 8 Dig pages 9 FYI: Asmodeus RfC 10 Re: CTMU diffs 11 New RfAr

[edit] Welcome

Hi Tim Smith, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thanks for your contributions to the coolest online encyclopedia I know of =). I sure hope you stick around; we're always in need of more people to create new articles and improve the ones we already have. You'll probably find it easiest to start with a tutorial of how the wikipedia works, and you can test stuff for yourself in the sandbox. When you're contributing, you'll probably find the manual of style to be helpful, and you'll also want to remember a couple important guidelines. First, write from a neutral point of view, second, be bold in editing pages, and third, use wikiquette. Those are probably the most important ones, and you can take a look at some others at the policies and guidelines page. You might also be interested in how to write a great article and possibly adding some images to your articles.

Be sure to get involved in the community – you can contact me at my talk page if you have any questions, and you can check out the village pump, where lots of wikipedians hang out and discuss things. If you're looking for something to do, check out the community portal. And whenever you ask a question or post something on a talk page, be sure to sign your name by typing ~~~~.

Again, welcome! It's great to have you. Happy editing! --Spangineer (háblame) 15:26, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 3RR

Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia under the three-revert rule, which states that nobody may revert a single page more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the effect of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you. Byrgenwulf 14:56, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Please, Tim Smith, will you also refrain from putting spurious warnings on other users' talk pages. I have gone through the history of the article in question, and as far as my calculations go, the only person who has broken the three revert rule here is you. You have made four reversions in the last 26 hours, of which 3 were in a space of 24 hours, that is why I put the above message on your talk page. I see you have simply "warned" all the other editors who don't happen to agree with you and have wished for the shorter, more intelligible article to remain. I don't think this is a very reasonable thing to do. Byrgenwulf 17:02, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

It's just a warning, and says not that you have already broken the 3RR, but that if you continue to repeatedly undo other people's edits, you may be blocked under it. All of the users I warned have repeatedly undone other people's edits.

I warned you for your recent reverts here (massive deletion of content I had just re-added), here (changing "little" to "no" when it had just been changed from "no" to "little" by DrL), here (re-insertion of content just removed by JKLevine), and here (massive deletion of content I had just re-added).

Additionally, you broke the 3RR last week: [1] [2] [3] [4] Tim Smith 20:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Threats

Do not threaten me with blocks. linas 15:09, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

This user is referring to my use of {{npa2}} in response to these personal attacks. Tim Smith 20:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Do not threaten me with blocks, either, especially when they are based on misunderstandings (deliberate or otherwise) of policy. Byrgenwulf 08:24, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

This user is referring to my use of {{npa2}} in response to this remark. Tim Smith 04:53, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: AFD closure (CTMU)

Thanks for your comment. I don't think the version of the article affected most of the delete arguments, at least those that I parsed as the most important. I was compelled by a couple of points made by delete voters: (1) the theory is probably not notable outside its connection to a really smart guy, and can be covered completely at the article on him; and (2) this is confirmed by the fact that none of the cites for the article mentioned any other people working on this theory. I agree that it was a difficult decision to make, and I did read the arguments closely and try to watch out for sockpuppets and other very new users. I'm going to stick by my closure, but if you feel that there is more discussion to be had, you might open a discussion at Deletion Review. I can also temporarily undelete the article if you feel that one version contains useful information for a merger into Christopher Michael Langan. (ESkog)^(Talk) 03:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Tim, I am ready to bow out of this discussion (as I just explained at Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2006_July_20#Cognitive-Theoretic_Model_of_the_Universe), but I feel a need to try to clarify one last point which arose during my (clearly inadequate but still rather diligent) "research" into this affair.

In this edit in a reply to you on User:DrL's user talk page, DrL wrote "Chris and I very much appreciated your efforts. It's nice to see that there are people (albeit only a few) who understand and appreciate the CTMU. I hope to meet you one day at a time when we can all look back and laugh". This could easily be taken to imply that you know "DrL"'s IRL identity. I feel that I have to ask: do you?

This mess has gotten quite unpleasant, and I hope you won't take this informational question the wrong way. I am only asking because if I am dead wrong about DrL (if DrL really has no "close connection" with CTMU, Langan, Meta, etc.), then I really need to know that.

Tim, I much appreciate the fact that you have refrained from sarcasm and other minor incivilities during the course of this difficult discussion, and while I was taken aback when I saw the quoted message and noticed its apparent (false?) implications, in your case I would like to say that I still WP:AGF. If I don't get more nastiness from DrL and Asmodeus in my own user talk page (beyond your control, I know!), I think that in a few days I would probably be willing to take a look at the proposed third version of a WP description of CTMU, e.g. User_talk:Tim_Smith/CTMU. ---CH 00:53, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know DrL or Asmodeus, and I don't know anyone involved with the CTMU in real life. As I said, I have no conflict of interest here. I appreciate your offer to look at a new description of the CTMU, and will consider my options. By the way, in case there's any confusion, I didn't have anything to do with the first CTMU article posted to Wikipedia. Tim Smith 02:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Tim, I appreciate this information. I don't know if you noticed these edits by Asmodeus which tend to confirm that he is indeed [removed] IRL:

1. tacit admission that he is [removed]
2. accidently confirms he is using IP geolocated in [removed]

Together with other internal evidence, I feel the case is pretty conclusive that his IRL idenity has been established correctly, and I am also pretty confident that DrL is indeed [removed]. For me, the key point here is that misrepresenting their true identities to cover up their conflict of interest in editing articles such as Christopher Michael Langan-Mega Foundation-The Ultranet is behavior so egregious that this alone ought be grounds for sanctions by the WP community. In any case, I feel their edits reveals a clear portrait of misbehavior sufficient to warrant an RfC, although I don't know whether any of the users concerned about shilling in WP has enough energy for this.---CH 18:58, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mega Society

I have requested that the Mega Society deletion be overturned here. --Michael C. Price ^talk 16:00, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Tim, as you know the Mega Society article was deleted awhile ago, at the end of an acrimonious AfD/DRV process. There is a wide divergence between deletion policy (as defined by various policy guideline documents) and deletion practice, as implemented by admins (who claim to be following the "spirit" of the law). Consequently there are lessons to be learnt from the experience, which will not be obvious from reading the guidelines. Here are some tips for future conduct:

• Single purpose users are frowned upon and were a frequent bone of contention during the AfD and DRV processes. So I urge you all to "establish" yourself as Wikipedians: create, edit and even ... delete articles! There are plenty of articles that need attention.
• It is a very good idea to put something on your user page, (it doesn't matter what) to avoid showing up as redlinked users -- being redlinked will count against you in any debate.
• When voting, include brief reasons which are grounded in policy (votes not backed by reasoning may be discounted; too much reasoning will be ignored).

Given the bias against soliciting (see judgement) I may not be able to contact you again, so I suggest you put the Mega Society in your watchlists.

The closing admin's comments on the Mega Society:

Within the argumentation of the debate, the most significant point raised by those who supported the article was that a new draft was available. The article is not protected, so this may be posted at any time and (assuming it is not substantially similiar to the older version) it will be judged anew on its merits. This is good news for you.

The bad news for you is that it is well-established practice within Wikipedia to ignore completely floods of newer, obviously "single-issue POV", contributors at all our deletion fora. I'm among the most "process-wonkish" of Wikipedians, believe me, and even process-wonks accept that these sorts of voters are completely discountable. Wikipedia is not a pure democracy; though consensus matters, the opinion of newcomers unfamiliar with policy is given very little weight. Your vote, that of Tim Shell, and that wjhonson were not discounted. The others supporting your view were. I promise you that it is almost always true that, within Wikipedia, any argument supported by a flood of new users will lose, no matter how many of the new users make their voices known. In the digital age, where sockpuppeting and meatpuppeting are as easy as posting to any message board, this is as it should be for the sake of encyclopedic integrity. It is a firm practice within Wikipedia, and it is what every policy and guideline mean to imply, however vaguely they may be worded. (I do agree that our policies, written by laypeople mostly, could do with a once-over from an attorney such as myself; however, most laypeople hate lawyers, so efforts to tighten wording are typically met with dissent.)

If your supporters were more familiar with Wikipedia, they would realize that, invariably, the most effective way to establish an article after it has been deleted in a close AfD is to rewrite it: make it "faster, better, stronger." This is, in fact, what you claim to have done with your draft. Good show. Best wishes, Xoloz 16:22, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

So the outcome was not entirely negative, although I was disappointed by the admin's rather cavalier approach evidenced by the response to my enquiry:

.... why did you discount the votes of, say, User:GregorB or User:Canon? They are not new users, nor did I solicit them. I presume by Tim Shell you mean Tim Smith? ...... --Michael C. Price ^talk 16:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

to which I received this rather off-hand reply:

User:GregorB offered a very brief comment not supported by policy. User:Canon did take the time to offer analysis at DRV, but he had been among the first voters at the AfD to offer a mere "Keep" without explanation; therefore, I assumed he had been solicited by someone. Best wishes, Xoloz 15:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

which didn't fill me with confidence about Wiki-"due process".

Anyway, my grumpiness aside, the Mega Society article, is presently under userfied open-development at User:MichaelCPrice/mega, and will reappear at some point, when (hopefully) some of the ill-feeling evidenced during the debate has cooled. I am very heartened by the article's continued development, and by the development of associated articles. Thanks for everyone's help!

--Michael C. Price ^talk 14:38, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userfy

I highly recommend that you take the closing admin of the CTMU article up on their offer to userfy (the version with the most citations). You can then put the article under peer review, or an RfC, seeking comments to its notability. Also, if you find any sources in the future that meet policy (such as WP:V) you can re-post it to the mainspace. This is my best advice for you. Good luck. SynergeticMaggot 23:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll consider my options. Thanks for the advice and for your willingness to mediate. Tim Smith 23:44, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Not a problem. I just wish there was more I could have done before it went to AfD. :/ SynergeticMaggot 23:49, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CTMU DRV

Hi Mr. Smith,

You put forth a noble effort in arguing the best possible case for your position based on the record at hand. Unfortunely for you, I feel even the circumstances as you present them do not warrant a relisting or reconsideration at this time. The guidelines for closer discretion at DRV are more narrow than other deletion fora here at Wikipedia: because DRV merely decides whether continued discussion is useful, "no consensus" closures of DRV debates do not exist, and vote-counting is the typical ultimate factor in deciding close cases. In making DRV tallies, the closer's only real discretion is to discount parties too new or too plainly biased for their opinions to be given full weight. In examining the debate, I saw that -- were I to undertake such discounting -- the advocates of CTMU would likely suffer a heavy burden. Few of them had extensive edit histories outside of CTMU and related topics. Had I discounted these comments, as many closers might have done within the rules, the determination of a final result would have been easy, and to your disadvantage. Sensing that "alternative theories" already endure great stigma, I elected to make an initial tally without discounting any CTMU advocate, to allow your position to be seen in the best possible light. Still, the consensus was against continued consideration of the article.

On the question of whether either the DRV or the AfD were corrupted by irregularities, I'm afraid I'm inclined to adopt the principle of denying relief to those with unclean hands; in other words, without impugning you personally, it is clear that both sides of the discussion were at fault in these irregularities, and also clear that the probability of a debate without flaw, on a topic that inspires this passion, is vanishingly small. It is, thus, both correct on the merits and expeditious in process to accept these discussions as the best that could reasonably be expected.

Finally, even if discretion were mine to exercise, I must confess that (whether the fault lies in the theory or in the article) my own reading of the text did not provoke sympathy. I fail to understand how or why this metaphysical conception ever came to considered alongside, and in comparison to, scientific ideas. Whatever power CTMU may have, the theory is -- by its own stated terms -- "extra/meta-rational"; outside of the empirical realm, it cannot supercede scientific notions, as it does not share any common terms with the scientific "model" by which the two might be evaluated in tandem. Seeing any comparison of science and CTMU as an hopeless endeavor, I can neither understand nor endorse the focus of the now-deleted article on this question. CTMU belongs in a philosophical discourse, not a scientific one, and I don't fathom why anybody (even the disgruntled scientists) would think otherwise. Of course, these personal feelings had only a marginal influence on my closure, if any; however, it is true that I am not inclined to go beyond the bounds of normal procedure for the sake of an article that I feel is fundamentally misguided. Best wishes, Xoloz 01:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, Xoloz. By my reckoning, discounting nobody, 12 of the 23 opinions were endorsements. The rules of DRV say to keep the article deleted, but let's call the result what it was: not consensus, but a one-vote majority. The AfD was also close, with just over 60% favoring deletion. Had the article, AfD, and deletion review not been linked and misrepresented at high-traffic project pages (WikiProject Physics and WikiProject Pseudoscience), the AfD would likely have closed as a no-consensus keep, and the review could easily have gone the other way.

As you say, the CTMU is not science, but philosophy, and is not meant to supersede scientific notions, but to interpret them in a self-consistent philosophical framework. That's how it has always been portrayed by its author, and that's how it was portrayed in the article, which expressly distinguished it from scientific theories, focused on philosophical subjects like mind, teleology, and the origin of reality, and had belonged to Category:Metaphysics since its creation in September 2005. That's exactly why the links at WikiProject Physics and WikiProject Pseudoscience, and the addition of the article to List of pseudoscientific theories by the AfD nominator, were so misleading and inappropriate. I don't know which version you saw, but the earlier comprehensive one was corrupted during the AfD by editors who not only didn't understand it, but who reworded it to attribute to Langan positions the opposite of those he actually holds. What remained at the time of deletion was an adulterated fragment of no use at all as an aid to understanding this notable, well-publicized theory. The earlier version was praised by several AfD participants as valuable in that respect. Its deletion is a great pity. Tim Smith 09:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dig pages

I notice you've created a set of "Dig" pages to track users, and that they contain information you say "may be sensitive and therefore should not be widely publicized." Some of these pages clearly violate the Posting personal details section of the blocking policy, which states that "Users who post what they believe are the personal details of other users without their consent may be blocked for any length of time, including indefinitely, depending on the severity of the incident, and whether the blocking admin feels the incident was isolated or is likely to be repeated." I encourage you to remove these pages from Wikipedia as soon as possible. Tim Smith 11:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Tim, I am acutely sensitive to the issues this raises; have you read User:Hillman/Digging or my user page? Did you notice that I have avoided citing those pages in talk page discussions, that they contain only publically available information, and that they do not contain any personal contact information? I'd like to discuss this with by email; can you email User:Jitse Niesen or User:Ems57fcva and ask them to forward your email address to me? I am eager to discuss the issues because the whole point is to help try to formulate and propose some kind of policy on when "digging" is and is not appropriate, as per my unfinished essay! TIA ---CH 11:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... if Jitse has tried to email me yet I haven't gotten it. I am having some problems right now with tweaking my filter while being mailbombed, ughghgh. Please have patience! See User talk:Jitse Niesen if you haven't been there yet for a comment addressed to you which I moved out from my own user talk page. ---CH 12:12, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion continues where it began, on User_talk:Hillman#Dig pages. Tim Smith 12:47, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

FYI, Jitse has replied to my email and he has the links he needs. He and I both need to attend to other matters right now, but I expect he will get back to me in more detail in a day or so. ---CH 13:51, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Tim, you wrote " If you won't do anything about them, I'll notify someone who will." Please review WP:DR, which says "First step: talk to the other parties involved". That is what I am trying to do: talk to you and other Wikipedians, especially admins familiar with policies/precedents I may not know about, about your concerns. OK? ---CH 21:44, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Tim, if you email me with Special:Emailuser/Lethe, I will forward the email to Chris. -lethe ^{talk +} 15:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

As I said on CH's talk page, we're not going to have a secret, off-wiki conversation about pages which she's put on one of the highest-traffic sites on the Web, and which show up in Google searches. Other users are concerned about these pages too. Discussion needs to be public. Tim Smith 21:58, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

On second thought, I agree with the last. You misunderstood my request to initiate a private conversation, but never mind. I plan to RfC MfD the pages in question and ask that you give me a day or so to figure out how to do this and to write my statement, OK? ---CH 23:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Give me another eight to ten hours? TIA ---CH 11:09, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Tim, please see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Hillman/Dig. ---CH 23:31, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like to comment that the pages either violate WP or they do not. They certainly seem to. Btw, Tim, you I saw you referring to Hillman as "she" but I believe "she" is male. In one online discussion, she linked to this bio and claimed it as her own. Just FYI. DrL 01:09, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Well—something is very weird. See this. Now look at the bottom of User:Hillman; see that "Created by"? See this. Finally, see this. What do you think? Tim Smith 03:07, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I saw something on the web alluding to that, but then finding Christopher Hillman's page in the math archive led me to think it was actually a real person. I agree that it seems to be a public account. This would explain a number of things regarding his bizarre behavior, disjointed posting, and lack of personal history. It may be time for a dig page on Hillman. DrL 22:07, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Tim, thanks for your itemized comments in the MfD. Right now it seems the outcome is likely to be inconclusive, but FYI, I am mulling over voluntarily following most of your itemized recommendations. The major exceptions:

1. In the case of User:Hillman/Dig/Haisch, it seems that there is a case to be made for keeping this documentation someplace at Wikipedia because I and others (see User talk:KSmrq) feel that Haisch misrepresented the context of KSmrq's remarks, etc.
2. In the ase of User:Hillman/Dig/Langan, it seems that several commentators feel that this documenation is sufficiently interesting to be kept someplace at Wikipedia.

Can you clarify (either here, in the MfD, or in my own user talk page) whether your recommendation re User:Hillman/Dig/Haisch took account of the issue of possibly defending KSmrq against Haisch's mischaracterization of his remarks? TIA ---CH 22:59, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

KSmrq already made that defense at User talk:KSmrq#You're famous. My recommendation remains to delete both User:Hillman/Dig/Haisch and User:Hillman/Dig/Langan. My concerns are that posting personal information contravenes the Posting personal details section of the blocking policy, and that publically tracking a good-faith user's "bad" edits on a dedicated page is demeaning and disrespectful to them. Tim Smith 03:20, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

• Tim, thanks for your efforts to expose conflicts of interest and general nonsense on WP. I will be very surprised if anyone finds a dig page on the Langans sufficiently interesting to keep on Wikipedia, but if they do I may very well be starting some of my own. Conflict of interest is so important to ferret out. I think Asmodeus hit the nail on the head here. DrL 00:46, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FYI: Asmodeus RfC

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Your comments would add much-needed balance. --DrL 17:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Tim. I just might check in over there with the observation that the APE cabal doesn't confine its purgative frenzies to articles categorized as scientific; it also preys on articles which are expressly philosophical, and refuses to acknowledge the difference even when instructed on it. (By the way, I liked your "outside view" on the RfC.) Regards, Asmodeus 14:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: CTMU diffs

I have restored the article's history, and the current version exists as a redirect as you have suggested. Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help ensure this arbitration goes smoothly for all involved. (ESkog)^(Talk) 03:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Oops, you're right, I did miss the talk page. It's there now. (ESkog)^(Talk) 11:24, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New RfAr

Hello, Tim. You might want to check this out. Asmodeus 20:55, 18 November 2006 (UTC)