User talk:Sean Heron

Hey Sean - I saw you made a change on the Battle of Latakia page, saw that you're new, so I wanted to say - welcome to Wikipedia. I'm Mark, and I'm one of the administrators here. If you have any questions, you can ask at the Newcomer's Help desk or privately on my talk page. Good luck, and welcome to Wikipedia. →Raul654 16:56, Apr 17, 2004 (UTC)

Multiple Sclerosis

Hi Sean, Thanks for your comments on my talk page. Yeah, I did a bit of work on the MS page but got a bit fed up with a couple of the other editors - one who didn't believe that references to personal experience pages were relevant and the other who didn't accept the Cochrane meta-studies, which showed that none of the immune drug strategies against the disease were effective against the long-term disease course, were relevant. I'm someone with MS who wants to see more work on the actual cause of the disease so that treatments can be accurately directed against the inexorably creeping long-term disability instead of short-term relapses. This is what people with MS want to see but the "establishment" view is that treatments are there and getting better all the time. That's not what I see. While the dogma that MS is autoimmune persists as the orthodox position, nothing is going to change. Clearly, there is an immune component in MS. The issue is whether it is the cause or whether both the disability and the immune response in MS are caused by a third process - perhaps apotosis or a virus like Epstein-Barr (who knows?). All we know is that treatments that mask out the immune response (and the resulting short-term disability) are getting quite effective but that there is nothing at all for long-term disability.

All in all, and against very effective resistance from other editors, I don't feel inclined to edit this page.

Take care, Paul Laetoli (talk) 12:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Stern Review

Thank you very much for you note and for your contributions to balance the article. These were much needed and now, I think, the NPOV criticism can be put to rest. It will be interesting to see whether this report provides an historical turning point, or whether, coming from the same stable, it is just another dodgy dossier. Kind regards Fentonrobb

Endorsement

I had a quick scan of your edits and see you are interested in socially relevant issues. Keep up the good work! Also I support the issues highlighted by Wikitruth. We have to fight to ensure Wikipedia doesn't suffer the fate of other centrally controlled bureaucracies.Chendy 22:24, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

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Climate articles

Welcome to a topic area with periodic noise explosions. We like high signal-to-noise, and we get frequent WP:SOAP and WP:FORUM postings by editors who don't demonstrate an interest in actual DISCUSSION to improve article content. Per the WP:TPG, the sole purpose of article talk pages is to try to improve article content. Users may remove other's comments when those comments are "harmful", though that's a grey area. An alternative to deleting borderline SOAP and FORUM is collapsing. If we have mis-read the situation, and the user whose work was collapsed indeed wants to work on improving content instead of just preaching, then they'll say something, and we can go from there. With your recent un-collapse its my opinion you have welcome SOAP and FORUM tinged with OR to the talk page, which does not help. In this case, the user appears to be forcefully opining at a variety of politically-tinged pages and at a quick read does not appear to be engaging anyone in discussion. Finally where someone does this without providing sources they are implicitly citing themselves as the the authority for verification. That's WP:Original research. QUESTION, do you plan to address any of the points you un-collapsed? If not, do you think the behavior is SOAP and FORUM? Why or why not? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:27, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the pointers (though I could have done with a little less acronyms). I'm short of time right now, so I'm not replying in depth to all your questions (yet), sorry. I don't agree with a lot of the points the editor made (think I wrote that in my edit summary? Might've been too long and cut off...). Anyhow, I'll have a look at whether there's any points I think are worth addressing, and sure, if I see it as valid I'll pick them up.

I didn't realise the user wasn't actually engaging with anyone, and I agree that that makes it difficult if you want to figure out / agree on changes :).

Question from my side - is the stance you describe above commonly taken especially on pages related to climate change, and efforts to avert that (and the catastrophes it entails), or also on other political pages ? Thanks! Sean Heron (talk) 11:37, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

It would be hard to say what "usually" happens anywhere on Wikipedia. If you run into a frustrating situation, post on my talk page and I'll offer any insights I have. You'll find that there are some topics that become magnets for all sorts of WP:Disruptive editing behaviors. The areas that have been most problematic are listed at Wikipedia:General_sanctions#Active_sanctions. Climate change is one of them! We have intermittent appearnances by eds who seem to be campaigning on the denial side, and others who seem to be campaigning on the alarmist side. I work very hard to work on climate articles on the Wikipedia side of neutrality, verification, and punchy clear writing (the hardest thing of all). There is so blessed much info in high quality sources that we really don't need to inject any of our own "stuff", so that's what I try to do. We can use all the help we can get from eds who want to make every top sub article "featured" status, but writing from the Wikipedia side rather than either the denial or alarmist ones. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:48, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

PS for clarity, thanks for the talkback at my usertalk which I deleted as matter of routine housekeeping. You're welcome to post new thoughts/questions there anytime. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:51, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the "active sanctions" situation - that was something I really wasn't aware of. As is perhaps obvious, I've not been active here much recently, so I've yet to dedicate the time for an overall overhaul of an article (ie towards FA or such :P). I am happy to admit that from what I've seen, I had the impression that some (aspects of) climate change articles are somewhat toned down here and there - I find the "punchy clear writing" to be often lacking somewhat where it regards the severity of change (and catastrophic consequences) that is already here, and that we are headed for...

I guess reading your take, I'm a little unsure whether you would place me in the "alarmist" camp - eg I'd think it important to state at the appropriate spots that there's preliminary research pointing out that in 22 years (at business as usual), in "northern Europe" (where I come from - Germany - was placed in that region for this study if I remember rightly), will be having a summer like the one just passed (or worse/more extreme!) every other year (on average). Or that the current yearly death toll due to climate change is estimated to be around 100,000 (or upwards), though admittedly, that is primarily through indirect effects such as higher infection rates (and the deaths that follow from that) for tropical diseases in countries with very limited medical services/ low income. Please let me know what your take is! (I'm going to have to let you wait for the links for the articles I'm referring to - I've killed all my tabs, and my history is only semi useful, so I'm going to have to search first..) Sean Heron (talk) 18:45, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

P.S. Thanks for offering to help if I run into difficulties "elsewhere" :P.

Need some more formatting. Add two colons to each of the three prior paragraphs and see the before after effect. That's how we WP:THREAD our discussions. Also, sign each comment with 4 tilde marks (~) even PS paragraphs. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:42, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

More substantively, to survive here, you need to stop thinking alarmist/denialist camp, and instead think WP:Verifiability, not truth. See also WP:RECENTISM, [{WP:NOTJOURNAL]], WP:FRINGE, WP:UNDUE. It's really pretty easy if you find quality secondary sources and let them do the talking. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:47, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what you're trying to say to me... I know formatting and colons - since this is my talkpage and its just you and me, I prefer to stay at the same level of indentation, rather than keep moving to the right (and at least for me, it's just as discernable who's writing what). Ditto with signing P.S. (Sorry if that makes it less legible to you...).
Also, I'm not thinking alarmist/denialist camps - I was wondering if you'd place me in one. I would have liked you to give me an answer to that question (though I'll admit, lacking the links makes it difficult to see whether it's verifiable information I'm pointing out :P). Not sure why you're pointing out Fringe, Undue and Recentism - I know my way round here, and if I do any editing, of course it will be supported by reliable sources (how else ?!). Sorry if the missing links to articles triggered you in any manner (which I can perhaps understand, given that this is probably a common issue). I'll look for the articles I was referring to now :). Regards, Sean Heron (talk) 08:40, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Not looking to pick a fight, just passing along things I had to learn when I started looking at climate pages. If the tips aren't wanted, just say so. If you know how to WP:THREAD, great. IMO if you try to edit climate pages and get into discussions you'll frustrate all the regulars if you don't indent in the conventional way. You have been warned (with a friendly helpful intention)! As for "putting you in a camp", sure I'll answer the question. I'm not concerned with what you privately think. I'm only concerned with how you edit. Since you haven't really edited climate articles I lack data to have an answer. And when you do start to edit, I'll start evaluating them according to WP:AGF, trying to avoid WP:BATTLE attitude, WP:DONTBITE (which I list since your new to the climate topic)... those are ones I list for me, not you. The point is, no one cares about "camp", at least no one is supposed to. We can all have our private ideas to ourselves and try to do our work by the five Ps. Sorry, but that's the best answer I can give you.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:18, 19 September 2018 (UTC) PS Oh yeah, the other things I listed earlier like Fringe? I only meant those are guidelines that make a regular appearance in discussions at climate pages. I only meant that if you intend to jump into that topic those would be good ones to have recently studied, because they're sure to come up if you stick around. That's all. Trying to help you prep as a way of welcome. Have at it! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:26, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

OK :). I guess I took you a bit wrong there, then (it felt like being talked down too a bit, yes). Thanks for the long and thoughtful reply! And nice to point out how you mean to approach anything I (if I ever get round to anything much...) do :P. I guess you're perhaps somewhat hitting the mark in that the degree that I think awareness of the issue needs to be raised might be to an extent in conflict with the manner in which Wikipedia articles are ("meant" as you say) to be worked out. But I do by all means intend to construct articles in such a manner that they are verifiable, take a "neutral point of view", and are readable and put the topic across clearly to boot :D. Not a mean task I guess :P. Lets see how I / we do ! Sean Heron (talk) 19:43, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Ok, here goes. I've not yet found any research papers supporting the "every other year in 22 years". I'd picked up that statement (with regard to Europe) here: Guardian article - actually it refers to the 2040s, rather than to in 22 years (that was an unintentional mistake by me when I "translated" it in my head). The article mostly builds on this paper. I've also stumbled over a (oldish) CDC brochure on the Increase of extreme heat events (they talk mostly about longer scale though, ie towards the end of the century). Still need to look for the death numbers. Sean Heron (talk) 09:43, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for searching sources. Sounds like this work is the sort of thing best discussed at the article talk page so others can also participate. Whichever page(s) brought us together are still on my watchlist so I'll see your work there whenever you add something to article or its associated talk. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:21, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Then see you some time soonish there I guess :D. Regards, Sean Heron (talk) 19:44, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

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project push

Hi Sean, I'm not sold on the project yet. AFter 8 years here I've taken my first gander at the task force and project help pages. It seems doing a project is work, and project environment has already done it and does it. So the existing task force under their banner seems like a good way to get started and then... if it proves to small for our needs.... we will have a really good evidence based reason to create a new layer of beaucracy with a project. In addition, at the talk page for the task force I saw some comments that make me wonder if there is a bit of misapprehension about what project could do for us. I've decided to add a user box to my talk page, and encourage you to read the documentation for Template:User all wikiprojects. Bottom line is that if there are social-interaction-conflict issues at the articles "in the wild" they aren't going away just because we get all these same people talking at a project. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 05:07, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

DS Alert - Climate change

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in climate change. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

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Comments

Just sending this FYI to everyone recently in the topic area who doesn't have one in the last 12 months. And before I posted here, I sent one to myself too. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:04, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

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AN/I notice

Per:

• "The other complaint, that my comment at the MRV “misinterpreted” the nominator’s response, is pretty spurious. He said, I now agree that simply reopening the RM will likely not lead anywhere. (diff) By agreeing that relisting or overturning is not the answer, he had conceded that there was no outcome for MRV to reach other than endorsing. The remainder of his comment was dedicated to “other things that could be done” in a future RM, which is entirely outside the purpose of MRV. It’s like talking about page cleanup in an AFD: It belongs on the talk page. And in fact, he promised just that in his edit summary! There was nothing left to review about the RM under discussion."

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Sleath56 (talk) 18:08, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

ANI

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. 74.73.230.72 (talk) 18:12, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Please see, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User 199.66.69.88 accusing multiple people as disruptive, I don't mean to be redundant to the ping but those sometimes fail for unknown reasons. 74.73.230.72 (talk) 18:12, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

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Iconic posts

This post and this one. I read them the same day you posted it. I stared at it with agreement and anxiety. I hesitated to add support but opted for silence, not adding to the public worry. Several major cities had it, the growth numbers which I was fetching every night at 3am on China's MoH's website were clear. This 5th feb. 2020 was the day when we could say "Brace ! Brace ! Pandemic is nearly certain." It been a tough years for us all. Been a weirdest one for us, Wikipedians who watched the wave from Jannuary 2020, grow and come. One year has passed, I'm still mind blown but the chain of events we witnessed. Yug (talk) 20:28, 9 March 2021 (UTC) Hey, I'm not here regular.

Been a pretty wild time for me as well. Nice of you to reach out! Definitely was weird seeing that - how might you say ? - the Titanic was going to sink while everyone else was still treating it as a news story somewhere far away.

Keep looking after yourself, regards

Sean Heron (talk) 22:18, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

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