[WikiEN-l] contributions of User:Mr-Natural-Health

Mon Dec 8 00:24:06 UTC 2003

Viajero wrote:

>Hi all, 
>
>I am afraid I spoke to soon. Mr Natural-Health was initially cowered by
>RK's agressive edits and hostile comments. His first response was several
>anonymous personal attacks against RK on the Talk pages. 
>
Certain editors have developed a reputation for aggressiveness.  This 
was a factor when there was a discussion about whether RK should be a 
sysop.  Veterans know this and how to avoid the hot buttons.  As a 
newbie Mr. NH walked into this with his eyes closed

>Then he hit upon
>the idea of listing him (also anonymously) on VfA to be de-sysoped -- only
>to be told that RK wasn't a sysop to begin with. Upon learning this, he
>triumphantly posted this on [[Talk:Criticisms of modern medicine]] (again
>anonymously, I don't know if this is accidental or intentional):
>
>>RK had me going believing that he was an Admin. 
>>
It's easy to leave that impression, without saying so.  (IIRC, RK is not 
but RickK is.  Both have aggressive tendencies, and there is a 
considerable overlap of their interest areas.) .  I'm inclined to 
believe that the failures to sign were unintentional.  He does sign 
sometimes, and there is nothing in his postings to suggest that he is 
unwilling to accept credit for what he says.  Those who intentionally 
refuse to sign their posts tend to be consistent about this.

>>All this could have been avoided if YOU guys would clearly
>>point who is an Admin, here. It is extremely confusing. 
>>
I agree, but there's no easy way of doing this.  We have a long list of 
admins, and each one tends to focus on a group of areas that interests him.

>>Now, that I know that RK is a nobody just like moi, I will
>>continue to improve Wikipedia with selective editing. Alternative
>>medicine clearly has been improved with my editing. 
>>
>>Yes, I will hang in here for the long haul, revising articles
>>as I see fit every couple of hours, days, weeks, months, years,
>>decades.--12.77.35.139 22:57, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC) 
>>
>
>He then proceeded to get into an edit war over one of his articles,
>[[Heroic medicine]]. Upon it being protected, he tried to skirt the
>injunction by creating a new article, [[Age of heroic medicine]], which
>the new sysop Pakaran later protected as well. In the meantime, he 's got
>a few more titles going:
>
>[[Natural therapy]]
>[[Natural philosophy]]
>
[[Talk:Heroic medicine]] shows no attempt to deal with the issues head 
on, or any attempt to reach a common unterstanding.  The very first 
posting to that talk page was

> User:Mr-Natural-Health  has made some changes on this article that I 
> see as more than a little questionable. I'm marking the article as 
> NPOV dispute until this can be resolved. -- Pakaran 07:30, 7 Dec 2003 
> (UTC)

That came 3 minutes after he had put a bare "neutrality disputed" notice 
on the article.  Where is Pakaran's attempt to find common ground? 
 Blocking articles is no way to strive for NPOV.  

>and added his loopy New Age stuff to:
>
>[[Biopsychosocial model]]
>[[Eastern]]
>[[Interventionism]]
>
The term "New Age" does not appear in any of those articles.  I've heard 
it used for many years, but am still uncertain about what it means; so I 
just don't use it.  Using such a characterization is prejudicial.

>I would like to emphasize that it isn't his ideas which are the problem --
>WP needs to improves its coverage in this area -- so much as his erratic,
>willful behaviour. Not only does he insist on blanking his personal Talk
>page, but he deletes comments from the article Talk pages. Just now I
>restored a series of deletions (of his own messages) he made to
>[[Talk:Criticisms of modern medicine]].
>
The bad behaviour was not as one-sided as you would suggest.

>On 12/05/03  at 02:51 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> said:
>
>>Ah-ha!  The proletarian mob raises the flag of victory from the yardarm!
>>
>>That was too close for comfort.  There was a serious risk that if Ed 
>>had gotten to him first he might have become a useful contributor. :-(
>>
>
>>From this and several other comments you've made, I gather you are
>sympathetic to Mr NH's point of view. Very good, but I don't see you
>getting involved in editing these articles to defend them from dogmatism.
>
Fair enough comment.

>By the look of your contributions page, it appears you devote more time to
>this mailing list than to the encyclopedia itself. Fine, not everyone has
>the same number of hours to devote to WP. 
>
True.  I don't dispute that my WP edits lately have been sparse.  I have 
even complained myself about the time that the mailing lists take.  I do 
manage to keep away from the Village Pump and VfD for time management as 
well as other purposes.  On the other hand I spend a lot more time on 
Wiktionary (and more recently on Wikisource) than on Wikipedia

>But the longer I spend on
>Wikipedia, the less respect I have for people who simply chant NPOV
>mantras from the sidelines and, correspondingly, the more my respect grows
>for people who roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty in the
>difficult, at times deeply frustrating task of editing articles on
>polemical subjects with (other) strong-willed contributors.
>
I was unaware of this dispute until you (Please correct me if it wasn't 
you) first brought it to the mailing list.  One of the purposes that is 
served by bringing a subject like this to the mailing lists is that it 
draws opinions from people who had not previously been a part of the 
debate.  I'll read these, and sometimes simply decide that I want no 
part of the subject.  At other times I will make an effort to visit the 
problem articles, and make up my own mind based on what I observe.  If I 
happen to disagree with the complainer rather than the complainee, I'll 
say so, then go back to whatever I was doing before.  The number of such 
articles that I continue to follow will be very small.

> I have been
>hard at times on Ed Poor here -- I've disagreed with his methods -- but I
>freely acknowledge that he puts more energy into trying to resolve
>problems in contentious articles than anyone else in this list. And in the
>final tally, that's what counts.
>
Agreed.  I think too that Ed is more aware of his own hot button items 
than many others here.
Ec