User talk:Dysprosia/Archive(20)

Quote Of The Decade

All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible. Orison Swett Marden.

-- fm Anthere

I, Reene, hereby award dysprosia the Wiki Wiffle Bat for her general awesomeness and a great attitude.

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In recognition of commendable deeds of musical heroism on Goldberg variations-- fm Rama

Is this where one writes comments? I feel like I am defacing something. Anyway, I think your recent edit to Homosexuality is a mistake arising out of a misunderstanding. The "arguments" sections was not "NPOV" "desperately needing revision" but a compendium of arguments historically used in the debate pro and con same-sex love. You have replaced that with a wordy paragraph including many of the arguments but embedding them in (forgive me) verbiage, which obscures the simple clarity of the original presentation. May I suggest that if you have new material to contribute to that section you place it in the leading paragraph and leave the list as it was? Better yet, in what is a crowded page, keep those additions to a minimum and place any non-essential material in the main article, linked to as the head of the section. Thanks, Haiduc 12:01, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes.

No, I don't believe so. I do understand that the arguments there are supposed to represent arguments by others, but even so, the way they were written was not clearly qualified in an NPOV manner (the points were merely stated without clear attribution, in my opinion).

Regardless and secondly, a simplistic outlining of bullet points is absolutely inferior to a proper discussion of the arguments. The section as it stood did not even attempt to explain the points listed even briefly. I'd like to think discussion of topics and ideas on Wikipedia consist of substantial treatment (even though it may be a mere lead section for a greater article), and not consist of bullet points and inelegant divisions into "pro" and "con".

Dysprosia 12:22, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm quite irritated and disappointed that in this edit you chose to revert what I had done, and you hadn't discussed this at all on Talk, or responded to my reasoning for doing so. What was the point of me responding to you, or editing further, for that matter, if you weren't going to discuss it and just go and revert anyway? Dysprosia 23:39, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry you feel that way. As I see it, I did not revert but re-wrote the section to accommodate your critique, which I thought reasonable. Your main argument seemed to be that the points were merely stated without clear attribution, and so this time I dug up what attributions I had ready at hand (more can be added as time allows) and eliminated those arguments I could not back up as per your advice. As for your disagreement with bulleted lists, if they are to be replaced they should be replaced with real substance. As far as the text that I removed, I hope you will admit that a lot of it was simply verbal filler, replete with vague generalizations like It is a perception by some that. . . and Homosexuality has been associated with hedonism and promiscuity by some, and many refute the argument of . . . with nary a word about who these "some" or "many" may be. Like this at least we know who the material is attributed to.

As for your suggestion that presenting examples of biased arguments is in itself biased, I respectfully disagree. In the proper context they are historical information. As you saw for yourself, an anonym reverted you before I had a chance to do any work, accusing your edits of being far more NPOV than my original rendition. His revert was itself instantly reverted by some experienced user who flew in for the purpose, never having contributed a jot to the article before or since, and without any explanation. I was shocked by the authoritarian nature of that action, but did not challenge it as it seemed to me upon cursory investigation that both you and him belong to groups of long-time users who are busy awarding each other medals and who may be acting in concert, and I did not want to cross any power group. I am not here to fight, but to write. Finally, if we are to air out our annoyances, I thought you original edit (some desperately needed NPOV, and replace the "he said/she said" points with a bit more cogent paragraph outlining some of the) was anything but considerate. I thought it hubristic and demeaning, and the sad crowning irony was that the paragraph you contributed was certainly not "cogent" by everyone's lights. But despite having started on that less-than-collegial note, perhaps we can now work together to resolve any outstanding issues. Haiduc 01:47, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. Let us discuss this in detail.

My main initial concerns were that

1. the points were not attributed (which you have taken care of -- thank you)

2. that a simple outlining of the issue in bullet points and division into pro and con is inferior to that of a descriptive paragraph.

You have stated that you indeed have taken care of 1., but you not addressed my second concern, 2. Perhaps I had not made it clear enough but in actuality my main concern was in fact this second concern.

To address "As far as the text that I removed, I hope you will admit that a lot of it was simply verbal filler..." -- would you then agree that most of an article discussing controversial issues is just "verbal filler" and it would serve an article's purposes to have a PowerPoint-esque discussion of just the main points? I'm sorry, but to use point form for an article attempting to be an encyclopedic text, for anything but a list is just anathema to me.

"As for your suggestion that presenting examples of biased arguments is in itself biased" -- I am unaware that I made such a suggestion. Perhaps I may have said something to suggest this, based on an earlier version where the points were not attributed (which, you must admit, is POV), and even the purpose of having the bullet points was not clear, but I do not hold this belief.

"who are busy awarding each other medals " Excuse me? If someone wants to say something nice to me on my talk page, they are free to do so, as they are free to do so to your talk page. I have personally not awarded any "medals" to any other user, though I have often given others kind words and encouragement about the work they do here. Do you suggest I refrain from doing so? Your accusation that I and other editors are belonging to some sort of "power group" leave me lost for words. If you think other editors are having power, or that the reversion was inappropriate, why didn't you say something on Talk -- that's what it's there for! I would have been more than happy to eke out something with you and other editors. What gave you the impression that I would not? It also would have been an order of magnitude more transparent for you to air your grievances about the paragraph and to come to some resolution there.

Finally, let me address my edit comment piece by piece.

* some desperately needed NPOV - You must agree that the first version was not NPOV, or if it were, it was far from clear neutrality. My changes to the section were to clearly highlight that some people held these views, and others did not or challenged them, which I do think I did accomplish.

* and replace the "he said/she said" points - I have a personal distaste for discussions on a controversial issue which have an "Arguments for" and an "Arguments against" section, or likewise a "Pro" and "Con" issue. I believe it is far inferior to a section where each issue is addressed in turn and the positive/for and negative/against issues are analyzed extensively. I have likened personally the "Arguments for"/"Arguments against" to the kind of sophistication of "he said/she said" argument. In hindsight this may have been harsh, for which I do apologise.

* with a bit more cogent paragraph outlining... Again, brief bullet points cannot fulfill a lengthy and lucid examination of the issues. Also, the way the points were outlined did not make it clear enough how the arguments listed on the article contributed. The paragraph was intended to elucidate this, thus it would be more cogent. In hindsight this may have also been harsh, for which I do apologise.

I think that it is good practice in a case like this to first work on things that can be more easily resolved. Rather than discuss the format, on which we hold diametrically opposed viewpoints, why do we not examine what information is missing from this section. Since you have re-opened the discussion, what would you like to see included there? Haiduc 04:45, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

PS We should probably continue this on the Homosexuality talk page, so that others can participate. Haiduc 04:47, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have no problem with the content as long as it is properly attributed and NPOV. I have stated my main wishes for the article in my reply to you above. Would you care to discuss the use of bullet points on Talk there? I have no real interest in fiddling with the article further otherwise, I don't really want to make a gigantic deal of this. Dysprosia 09:26, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't mind, I do think the issue should be opened to others working on the article, a kind of mini-RfC, if you will. Haiduc 01:53, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please do. Dysprosia 01:58, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]