User talk:TheTimesAreAChanging: Difference between revisions

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Before you revert the edits on the Sega Article, present me good arguments why the article was good the way it was before. You still haven't responded to my points responding to your concerns. Talk:Sega#Proposed mass deletion

Hello, TheTimesAreAChanging. You have new messages at Talk:Khmer_Rouge#Revert.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hi, TTAAC. Crossing paths with you in recent discussions, after not seeing you for quite a while, reminded me that long ago I wanted to drop a note here regarding something I noticed in your contributions. So better late than never; the note from me to you would have read something like: "If I find out that you worked for Insomniac Games, and have a license plate on your car that reads 'GO SONIC', I'm going to completely "lose my shit" and demand that you call me immediately." If such a message is nonsensical to you, and it likely is (but I just can't shake this nagging notion), please disregard it. Best, Xenophrenic (talk)

Well I've let the issue drop, a little later than a few other editors who took a similar view. The current text is just fine, but not for the reasons you mentioned IMO. Its merit is that it is more exact (specifies the BBC's evidence, rather than its general conclusion—I'm all for readers being as clear as possible about the underlying evidence), not that it follows policy more closely. The latter might also be true, but it's not necessarily obvious. You know much better than I that "policy" on wikipedia can be as contentious as "truth" in the real world, even if there is agreement on the general criteria. And you know far better than I do, in your heart of hearts, that OR is alive and well on wikipedia. It's just that this OR is explicitly conducted only on talk pages where editors discuss, contest and select source material. And whenever "truth" is contested, OR is usually implicit in actual article edits. This is not to say that the policy is wrong or useless or even incomplete. As anywhere else, the problem is the human element.

But to get a little more concrete, I don't recognize my argument in your retelling of it. So the point about Pepe and Louise was not that refutations of Pepe necessarily cast doubt on Louise. In actuality, there were two points: 1) If Pepe and Louise claim the same thing, a source claiming that thing to be a "fake" via refutation of Pepe should not be assumed to be nothing more than a refutation of Pepe, since its intended target is not just Pepe but also the actual thing. Such an assumption could in fact be considered OR, if an editor were to uncover evidence that Louise's testimony is basically independent of Pepe's. You'll note that no such evidence was offered (only my evidence to the contrary), so it cannot even be called research. I know you think the target in our hypothetical example is actually Pepe, not the thing—we'll just have to let that philosophical debate rest. 2) Pepe and the source that debunks his allegation do not become irrelevant the minute Louise makes the same allegation in a different form. That's simply moving the goal posts so that the allegation always comes out unscathed. This part of the argument was aimed at those who wanted to simply erase the BBC and the source it debunked. This was a key point and I'm glad the sources were kept.

My problem is not with the syntax, just how it's being used...it's exactly the same as "policy", but much more serious. While on any given topic the applicable policies may be hotly contested, crappy markup that looks like a frat house after a drug-fueled orgy is OVERWHELMINGLY SUPPORTED BY CONSENSUS. It's fucking insane.Guccisamsclub (talk) 02:22, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you're right: Without some degree of OR on talk pages (what I euphemistically call "editorial discretion"), many pages would devolve into a mess of claims and counter-claims, perhaps even giving undue weight to demonstrably false claims in nominally reliable sources. Hence why WP:OR explicitly states: "This policy of no original research does not apply to talk pages." In this case, I still think the burden would be on you to prove that Louise's testimony is based on the exact same evidence or is simply a regurgitation via citogenesis of Pepe's, rather than the reverse. But, as always, we may just have to agree to disagree. TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:58, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

On reflection, I also feel your stance here is a bit hypocritical given that, in one of our earliest debates, you argued that a letter to the editor in which Zbigniew Brzezinski categorically stated that Chinese support for the Khmer Rouge was done "without any help or encouragement from the United States" did not refute Brzezinski's alleged "admission" to far-left author Elizabeth Becker that "we encouraged the Chinese to help Pol Pot"—even though Brzezinski was writing in response to a New York Times article written by Becker! As I recall, your argument was that any inaccuracies in the article based on Becker's book in no way called that specific quote from the book into question. But perhaps you remember that exchange a bit differently than I do?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:35, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, these two examples are not really the same: on the one hand we have the BBC saying the event did not take place (arguably) and explicitly refuting a stupid tweet saying that it did, but NOT refuting the eyewitness, explicitly or otherwise; on the other we have a politician issuing a denial of a description of policy by a reliable specialist source. So it's a false equivalence.

In her article, Becker wrote that Zbig facilitated Chinese and Thai aid to the Khmer Rouge, but Zbig's full quote was a little different. He said he encouraged others to support Pol Pot, because obviously the US government could be not seen as getting its hands dirty with such an "abomination", something he reiterated in his letter. But nonetheless it had to be done, because it was a question of "helping the Cambodian people", which is standard code for furthering US government interests. So Zbig did challenge Becker's description of the policy and her use of his quote in her article. Therefore, if someone were to quote Becker's NYT piece, it would be fine to also quote Zbig's denial. But in relation to the full quote from Becker's book, Zbig's letter is simply a politician's non-denial denial. I actually asked Becker a couple months ago whether Zbig or his lawyers ever demanded a correction from her or her publisher, despite the fact that the book went through several editions and received much publicity. She said "no". Clearly if someone invents an inflammatory quote, the correct response is along the lines of:"I never said that—you're a liar and you'll hear from my lawyers". No such response was forthcoming. For example, Zbig did explicitly deny another quote in relation to Afghanistan, causing Real News to issue a correction.

And you might want to stop throwing around terms like "far-left", "activist" and "communist", unless you are know something about an individual's political views and activities. That's what got Joe McCarthy into trouble, though to be fair—he at least tried to collect the "evidence". And it's just poor form, 'cause it makes you sound like a shrill regular from Free Republic, Little Green Footballs or worse. Now I've had enough contact with you to know that's not true, but you could easily give the wrong impression to someone else and thus derail the conversation. You had me fooled for some time.Guccisamsclub (talk) 15:52, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]