User talk:MrOllie

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A cookie for you!

A cookie for you! Webuser123 (talk) 20:19, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Malone vs McCullough

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_A._McCullough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Malone

Hi Ollie, I noticed that you have participated on both of these talk pages. I am a longtime anon IP whom will never register.

The tone of the two pages linked above is remarkably different. That should not be the case. The problem lies on the McCullough page being largely nothing but a hit piece while the Malone page is a decently collated encyclopedic page. The difference is unmistakable and should be rectified. The non majority POV pushers on the McCullough page are doing a disservice to the project. ie McCullough spread falsehoods in addition to misinformation, Malone receives criticism for XYZ, while McCullough is wrong about XYZ based on CNN etc.....2601:46:C801:B1F0:15B4:CBCF:47A8:1187 (talk) 21:22, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

We follow the reliable sources, and the reliable sources treat these two differently. There's not a lot that can be done about that while following Wikipedia's content policies. MrOllie (talk) 21:34, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

And the unregistered editor will have at least as much privacy after registering a pseudonym and greater ability to take part in discussion in a non-ninja-like manner, but some unregistered editors are stubborn. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:10, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Removal of external link

Hello MrOllie, I am here to appeal you to not to remove that link which I had placed in fantasy sports page. As I put it as an example of a sports fantasy application. I hope you understand what I am trying to say. Dhruvsoni9818 (talk) 15:41, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

It is obvious link spam. Wikipedia is not a place to advertise. MrOllie (talk) 15:56, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

External links to capture software solutions

Dear MrOllie, thank you very much for reviewing my edit! I am new to Wikipedia and would like to learn, why you took down the link, I added. The link was reported as advertisement spam, but I did not intend it that way. For document capture solutions, I think it would be very helpful to real solutions directly in the article. What´s your take, on how to achieve that, without taking my link out? Thank you so much in advance! Claasbot (talk) 16:37, 3 January 2022 (UTC)Claas

We don't link to software vendors, nor will we mention 'real solutions', as Wikipedia is not a directory or a place to advertise. - MrOllie (talk) 16:42, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Pages relating to AI and self-replicating machines

Dear MrOllie,

As you have seen, I have spent a considerable amount of time over the last couple of weeks editing various pages relating to self-replicating machines, AI takeover and closely related topics.

I am an expert in these areas, having done a PhD on the topic in the 1990s and having spent the last 6 years or so researching and writing a book on the topic, which was published by Springer. I am also a board member of the International Society for Artificial Life. I am passionate about sharing knowledge beyond the confines of academia, and wanted to use my specialist knowledge to improve these pages. This has included correcting some factual errors that existed in some of the existing versions of the pages, and adding new relevant information. It is true that most of my edits included a citation to my book, but given that my book is the first to concentrate specifically on the early history of self-replicating and evolving machines, that is not entirely surprising. I also added new references to other recent works by other authors on some of the pages too, where appropriate.

My heart sank when I saw that you have today systematically deleted all of my recent edits within the space of a few minutes. You say in your comment that "it appears as if your primary purpose on Wikipedia is to add citations to research published by a small group of researchers", but this is an (incorrect) assumption on your part. You refer to the WP:SELFCITE rules, which I have read, but I do not agree that I have placed undue emphasis on my work. I accept that this is a subjective call, though.

I do appreciate the work you are doing in policing the editing of Wikipedia. What I would say though is that I would have appreciated a discussion about these edits before you removed them wholesale. By removing the edits and reverting to earlier revisions you have reintroduced some factual errors into the articles, and removed some relevant extra information.

With best wishes,

DrTimTaylor (talk) 18:03, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

As you concede, 'It is true that most of my edits included a citation to my book'. This is the definition of 'undue emphasis on my work'. Per the WP:COI guidelines, the discussion should have happened before you added these edits at all. But the article talk pages remain open to you, feel free to use them to make suggestions for unconflicted editors to take a look at. - MrOllie (talk) 20:02, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi MrOllie,

Thanks for your response. My understanding of the WP:COI and WP:UNDUE guidelines and and how they apply to my edits is somewhat different to yours, so it would be helpful (certainly for me, at least) if we could explore this a bit more.

First I would like to get one failing in my recent edits out of the way. In my edits of the article Self-replicating machine I did mention my book "Rise of the Self-Replicators", and the authors, specifically in the article text. I did this because it fitted in with the existing text of the section I was editing, where some other secondary and primary books and their authors were already explicitly named. However, I fully accept that this, on reflection, overstepped the mark, and that I should not have mentioned my own book in my edit of the article.

The rest of my discussion here relates to the several paragraphs of other material I added to that page, ignoring for now the one sentence which mentioned my own book, and to all of the edits I made to other pages (around 14 articles) in recent months on the topics of self-replication machines and evolutionary influences in early thought about intelligent machines and AI.

My book presents a history of these ideas, covering the 17th-20th centuries. It is therefore a SECONDARY source, and describes and presents references to over 300 original PRIMARY sources. My book was peer reviewed and published by one of the world's biggest academic publishers, so I assume there is no argument that it is - in general - a perfectly acceptable secondary source on these topics in Wikipedia's eye.

The guidelines on WP:COI define a conflict of interest as "contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, family, friends, clients, employers, or your financial and other relationships". However, my edits were not ABOUT MYSELF. My edits to the articles discussed early thinkers on the topics of self-replicating and evolving machines, such as Samuel Butler and George Eliot in the 1800s, and various works in early pulp sci-fi in the 1920s-1940s. I cited my book as a reliable SECONDARY SOURCE to back up what I wrote in the articles. The citation by an author of a book they have written as a secondary source to justify what they have written in a Wikipedia article is not specifically covered in the WP:COI guidelines.

In terms of "undue emphasis on my work", again, my edits (apart from the one case mentioned above) were not about my work, but merely using it as a published secondary source. My book is the first to really concentrate on early Darwinian influences in thinking about AI, so there aren't any obvious choices for other secondary sources to cite. Again, the use of an author's own work merely as a citation of a reliable secondary source is not specifically covered in the WP:UNDUE guidelines, which are primarily concerned with undue representation of minority views.

There's more I could say here, but I'll stop at this point for now. I would be interested to hear your views on the above.

With best wishes,

DrTimTaylor (talk) 17:58, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

On that article you cited yourself 14 times and added your name to the opening paragraph of the article. If that is not "undue emphasis" nothing is. Still, you may take this up on the article talk page, or seek additional input at WP:COIN. My user talk page is not the venue for this. - MrOllie (talk) 18:05, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Okay, seeking additional input at WP:COIN was going to be my next step, so I'll try that. Thanks. DrTimTaylor (talk) 18:20, 5 January 2022 (UTC)