Directory:The Wikipedia Point of View/Peter Damian Evidence

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Evidence for the Arbitration Committee

The Arbitration Committee (September 2008)

Peter Damian Background

Mathematics, logic and set theory

Philosophy and Logic

Medieval philosophy and logic

Aristotle

Biographies

Gospel music

Architecture

Argument

My argument for unblocking is very simple, as follows.


  • (Major premiss) There is an important difference between principled and good-faith criticism of a contributor, and personal attack or harassment.
  • (Minor premiss) My criticism of the editor called FT2 has been principled and in good faith. My actions should not therefore be labelled as 'harassment'.

The major premiss is clear. Everyone accepts that fair and principled criticism of another editor's action is essential to the continued survival of the Wikipedia project. To demonstrate the minor premiss, it will be necessary to discuss and criticise some of FT2's contributions to the Wikipedia project, and to see how the blocks of Peter Damian are connected with this.

Criticism of FT2

  • He indulges in long-winded denunciations of other editors in a way that can only escalate hostility. He chokes off any objective editorial discussion with a logorrheic thicket of words that seems designed to confuse. He also obscures or deflects any properly editorial approach to article-building with an interminable invocation of Wikipedia rules and tenets designed to cloak him in an aura of righteousness.
  • Tends to personalise all discussion with endless ad hominems
  • He does not really understand the basics of neutral editing (although he endlessly claims to). For example, he cites erotic or pornographic websites, self-published sources. Worse, he often misattributes material. Most egregious example of this was when he claimed that the eminent linguist George Lakoff had endorsed Neurolinguistic programming - a significant and important fact if true, but i he had bothered to check his source, he would have seen that the quote was not by Lakoff. He does not understand the principles of peer review. He imagines the fact that someone is published in the field, or has a doctorate, or is well-known, or has had their writings vetted by somebody else of note, is of itself sufficient to merit inclusion in an article. His understanding of the relative merits of publications is seriously flawed, e.g. when he pointed to journals like the one put out by The International Society for Anthrozoology (which is not a recognised journal - see also the NLP journals). He quotes other authors like Nancy Friday whose work is pure pulp fiction.
  • Seems to many others to be agenda driven. (Quote Flavius).
  • This manner seems almost deliberately calculated to annoy and infuriate editors with an academic background. His pernicious insistence on absurd and trivialised standards of 'civility' to the exclusion of all editorial or content determined material, is having a marked and deleterious effect on the project.
  • He has no real knowledge of the subjects he edits, although he persistently claims to.

"your own editorship absolutely stinks of partiality and POV motivations" "some editors are so intent on expounding on their subject from a certain angle that for them, making an edit "more neutral" is tantamount to watering it down to suit an agenda of which they themselves may not be fully conscious"

The effect of all this, combined with the important position he holds on Wikipedia, and the reverential awe in which he is held by less knowledgeable and more impressionable administrators, is a malignant and pernicious influence on the project. He has driven off a number of excellent and well-qualified editors. Has gathered around him a group of administrators who hold him in high esteem for his supposed impartiality and neutrality.


  • The problem here appears to be that you would like the actual position of numerous prominent (and in some cases preeminent eg. Levelt) scientists regarding NLP censored or placed on equal footing with the baseless opinions of NLP promoters. This is perverse. The NLP article would achieve NPOV by reflecting the status of NLP amongst scientists and clinicians. flavius 03:54, 20 November 2005 (UTC) [1]
  • "I quickly reviewed FT2's truncated abstracts and citations and I offer the following observations: (a) at least some are not sourced from reputable, peer-reviewed journals; and (b) most of the summaries are replete with vague and imprecise quantificational language (eg. "most helpful", "positive correlation" (magnitude?), "partially positive effects", "strongly related", "marked improvement", "positive reduction", "deeper trance", "substantially", "very helpful", "enormous changes", "very many of the people" etc.). The use of such vague language is evidence of methodological defect. I have reviewed some of the cited literature and I too am of the view that NLP is largely -- if not entirely -- without substance, ineffective (beyond non-specific factors) and without any scientific basis. flavius 08:37, 13 November 2005 (UTC) [2]
  • Having [redacted] and [redacted] edit the article doesn't alarm me. In my experience both had some understanding and appreciation of the notion of evidence and were quite clear thinkers. I don't feel I can extend the same assessment to FT2. FT2 carries an idelogical stench whereever (s)he seems to go in "Wikipedia World". There is a clear advocacy and promotion in FT2s edits. Furthermore, the promotion and advocacy is unsophisticated and lazy in the sense that it is apparently exlusively based on Google. FT2's edits are replete with unsubstantiated opinion -- the "NLP and Science" article is a particularly egregious example of this tendency, it is a mass of unsubstantiated verbiage. (Flavius Vanillus).

Blocks of Peter Damian

Relevant accounts

Block logs

Relevant Blocks

  • 4 December 2007 Radiant! (Smear campaign)
  • 6 December 2007 WJBscribe (legal threat)
  • 29 June 2008 Ryan Postlethwaite (Harassment)
  • 13 August 2008 (MBisanz - personal attack or harassment)
  • 01:45, 31 August 2008 by Coren (incivility)
  • 23:11, 6 September 2008 by Jimbo Wales (harassment)

4 December 2007

6 December 2007

WJBscribe (legal threat)

29 June 2008

Ryan Postlethwaite (Harassment)

13 August 2008

(MBiszanz - personal attack or harassment)

31 August 2008

by Coren (incivility)

6 September 2008

  • by Jimbo Wales (harassment)
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