User talk:Simesa

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I have been away for an extended period but will be contributing again in a limited fashion. Thank you for your patience. Simesa (talk) 21:30, 4 February 2008 (UTC) I was also away October 6, 2008 until today. Simesa (talk) 20:44, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Archive1

Thank you

Thank you for the courtesy And thoughtfulness to contact me, I will do more legal research (it is a legal issue) and put it on my watch list.Goldenrowley 03:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

I appreciate you reverting vandalism to my user page and all your work at HIV trial in Libya and the associated drama. Regards, Scientizzle 20:51, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Unspecified source for Image:SSTAR.jpg

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Nuclear fuel cycle

Hello, would you care to comment on nuclear fuel's talk page about a diagram added to it. Thanks. 69.129.195.170 14:21, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I have been away from Wikipedia until today, but will look at the page now. Simesa 21:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe you are referring to the picture of a CANDU fuel element. Having worked only in the U.S. industry I am not an expert on CANDUs. However, the cylindrical geometry, size and structural layout all certainly seem appropriate. Also, a Google Image Search on "CANDU fuel" produces several very similar images. I would say the picture is authentic. Simesa 21:23, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

see talk page Hiv trial

lets discuss this 68.60.68.203 02:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

see proposals for a consensus based Intro68.60.68.203 02:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Omaha

Thanks for you compliment on Civil Rights Movement in Omaha, Nebraska. That means a lot to me, especially with the articles you've created. You might also be interested in Timeline of Racial Tension in Omaha, Nebraska and List of articles related to North Omaha, Nebraska. - Freechild 23:37, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts about Civil Rights Movement in Omaha, Nebraska now that I've broken out a large amount of the content in order to create Racial Tension in Omaha, Nebraska. Thanks in advance. - Freechild 13:53, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Nuclear power

I'm taking a break now, after getting carried away with the article today! Hope we are moving forward. Wonder if you may be able to add some perspective to the "TMI and other accidents" section, by providing some context and analysis. And I think the "Nuclear proliferation" section needs to be cut down but I'm not sure what should go.

I am interested to see that you are an INTP. I'm an INTJ. -- Johnfos 05:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Statistics of defect detection

I am the person whose Web page is at http://www.oldberg.biz. However, my email address is changed to terry_oldberg@yahoo.com. My phone number is 650-941-0533 . I'd be happy to hear from you. Communication via Wikipedia is cumbersome so is a last resort for me.

Dutch Wonderland

FYI, User:ClairSamoht left Wikipedia back in late 2006 and has not contributed since (sadly). I still have his talk page on my watch list. Ruhrfisch 20:47, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Note to self

Talk with wind power guy and build an article on comparisons of economics of new power generation facilities. Simesa 05:28, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Just so ya know

Sent you a couple of emails. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 01:55, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Talk:HIV trial in Libya

Hi! Thanks for the attention given to sources, this can only help. But, in fact, the references do support the claim — please see message on Talk:HIV trial in Libya. Cheers! Tazmaniacs 01:06, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Just noticed this

in re: [1]

Hi Simesa, Best Regards.

I know this is old, but it ranks as very important to goggle. Apparently you filed a fishing expedition search warrant to determine if I had created sock puppets to avoid a block. It reads like an accusation of stalking quite frankly, and I appeal to your sense of fairness that it is both unwarranted, and really quite a deal less assuming of good faith than things of which you yourself have complained. In any case, I am asking you to make it go away - as you have asked me to remove unfavorable remarks in the past. Again best regards. Hopefully you and Obama can figure out where to put the nuclear waste eh ;) 71.75.125.236 (talk) 02:22, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Just got back. Let me see if I can address this. (I did make a suggestion to the feds on what to do with our nuclear waste, but never heard back and it's a touchy subject so I don't want to discuss it untuil I tag up with them again.) Simesa (talk) 21:30, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello Again

I apologize, I have been away for an extended period - can't recall the last time I logged on, actually. I hope to be contributing in a limited fashion for at least awhile now. Simesa (talk) 21:30, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of The Benghazi Six

An editor has nominated The Benghazi Six, an article on which you have worked or that you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

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Help me

I reverted your edit to Help me as it introduced a {{help}} (same as {{helpme}} template. Also, it is a self reference. Cheers. =) --slakr^\ talk / 10:52, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

My concern here was eventually resolved when Help me was linked to Help and another editor restructured that page to include Crisis hotline. Simesa (talk) 10:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Crisis pregnancy center

Welcome back, Simesa.

I saw that Andrew C deleted your contribution to the external links section of the Crisis pregnancy center article. His comment was that the link you added was not "pertinent," but that seems absurd to me. So I restored it. NCdave (talk) 10:00, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Dave - This is going to be a controversial topic, and I hope and expect we'll find common ground quickly. It would be, I think, appropriate for that link or something like it to be somewhere in Wikipedia. I do appreciate your support! Simesa (talk) 11:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I wish to state that I am neither Pro-Choice nor Pro-Life. My position here is that the information is encyclopedically interesting. I do have the principles of providing people with complete information and then not making their choices for them. Simesa (talk) 12:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

That's what we need in an encyclopedia article. I am pro-life. I believe that elective abortion is the moral equivalent of murder, and that the level of civilization of a society is best judged by its treatment of its weakest, most vulnerable members -- a test my own country has been failing miserably for the last 35 years. However, an encyclopedia article is not the place for making that case. I appreciate your efforts to make the article balanced and informative. Unfortunately, your good work and mine have been deleted by someone who thinks the article should be an expose on how evil CPCs are.  :-( NCdave (talk) 21:32, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Comment

Hi, Simesa. I came here to leave a note about your comment at Talk:Abortion thinking you were a newcomer, but I see from your user page that you're not. So just bear with my picky comment: posts like this that have little, if anything, to do with an article's subject aren't particularly productive and clutter up a talk page, making it difficult to navigate. Commentary is more likely to bring about productive discussion when it is tailored toward specific details, especially on such contentious topics as abortion. Hope this helps! --Phyesalis (talk) 17:23, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I just got back to Wikipedia after an extremely busy weekend. I see your point though, and you're right I probably should have found a better place to mention this (perhaps at the Village Pump, although I've only used that once). Simesa (talk) 11:52, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

List of tests

I suggested a change in the article List of tests. Please see my comments on it's discussion page for my reasoning. LeilaniLad (talk) 21:19, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of List of resorts

I have nominated List of resorts, an article you created, for deletion. I do not feel that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of resorts. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? - DiligentTerrier (and friends) 20:58, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Image:StrasburgRR 2004 0920Image0044.jpg listed for deletion

An image that you uploaded, Image:StrasburgRR 2004 0920Image0044.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion because Wikimedia does not have an OTRS verification of Public Domain release by the copyright holder. Please see the deletion discussion. If you are unfamiliar with the OTRS procedure, I've created a user-friendly OTRS sample to satisfy this requirement. JGHowes ^talk - 01:04, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

My comment to that photo tells exactly where it came from. I'll contact the photo's owner about filling out the necessary info. Thanks for the OTRS sample! Simesa (talk) 22:27, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Clean Coal

Hi, thanks for the feedback. I do sincerely appreciate your input.

I still think that for the most part, my edits balanced the article (but even then, they still left an overwhelmingly opposing POV which still needed to be 'neutralized'). Certainly, those edits were far more of a temporary fix while the article/section was rewritten. I think that, if you review my edits completely, you'll see that they were quite neutral. Some of my edits were said to use so-called 'weasel' words, but the problem is this whole article is a 'weasel article!'

Almost every negative statement made is implied as an 'objective fact' when they are either opinions, claims, or non-universally accepted concepts. There are some cases were the term 'claim' and 'who believe' are very appropriate terms; the way I used them in the article are some of those places (I also feel that is true with 'so-called,' because that is exactly how we use the term, but that's secondary). If we want to be fully explicit, that's fine, but the fact is that Greenpeace (for instance) makes 'claims' that are not stating fact, and the same is often true of clean coal proponents. However, a 'concept' of clean coal cannot be 'wrong' per se. This is like saying that the concept of 'the automobile' is 'wrong.' Such things are a 'goal' and implementation is a technological challenge. There is nothing 'wrong,' per se, with trying to invent technologies which can use coal as a primary energy store and avoid supposed 'harmful' byproducts of its use. Some people may think it can't be done, others think it can. Some thought man couldn't reach the moon, others thought he could. Sometimes, especially with technologies such as this, where you have proponents and opponents, we should NOT be afraid of using the terms 'they claim' or 'who believe.' To avoid these terms in this context is, quite frankly, idiotic.

It is clear that this article's intent is to discredit the pursuit of technologies that promise to deliver emission-free or limited emission coal power. Current technology cannot be used to discredit a concept. If one can somehow show that fundamentally the concept has a high probability of failing (for instance, 'walking to the moon without a spacesuit'), then we can make a probabalistic case. To my knowledge, this hasn't been done with clean coal technology, and I doubt that such a case could be made.CrimsonSage (talk) 14:50, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Nuclear Debate

{{helpme}} Hello, let me explain first. Right now nuclear power and three other articles have extensive debates on the pros/cons of nuclear power plants. On 5 September I posted Merge notices in all four articles and said I'd consolidate the arguments into nuclear power#Debate on nuclear power in about a week - the two responses to this have been favorable (I've already merged in lesser sections from other articles). -- Here's where it gets complicated. Fully aware that nuclear power is too big, and that someday the debate might be broken out into its own article, I've linked all articles with debate sections to nuclear debate which is currently a Redirect to nuclear power#Debate on nuclear power. (It also provides, via "What links here", a convenient list of all the articles that debate nuclear power.) -- My request is, in case we move the Debate to nuclear debate, would an admin please semi-protect that article (as nuclear power is protected), even though right now it is just a redirect? Or recommendations? Simesa (talk) 23:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

• If you want the redirect to be protected , ask at WP:RPP. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 23:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

We don't edit-protect pages preemptively (except in very rare cases), so I'd recommend going ahead and doing whatever you're doing and adding the page to your watchlist. Keep an eye on it, and if it looks like vandalism is picking up, request protection at WP:RFPP. Hope this helps some, if not, let me know. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 23:47, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of The Virtual Nuclear Tourist

A tag has been placed on The Virtual Nuclear Tourist requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a person or group of people, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is notable: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not indicate the subject's importance or significance may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable, as well as our subject-specific notability guideline for biographies.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you.  RGTraynor  17:33, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Clarizen

I found some news articles about Clarizen from reliable sources, and added them to the references section of the article. You may want to revisit Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Clarizen. --Eastmain (talk) 02:24, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Merger

When you propose a merger, you are generally supposed to start a discussion about why you did that. Since you haven't yet, please do so now here so we can better evaluate the proposal. NJGW (talk) 02:45, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Texas Railroad Museum

An article that you have been involved in editing, Texas Railroad Museum, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Texas Railroad Museum. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? Travisl (talk) 04:21, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Away 10/5/08 until today

I apologize, I was away on other tasks until today. Simesa (talk) 20:44, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Reverting my edits

Hi there, why did you revert my revert? I realise this may have been a mistake, but my revert was actually removing references to him being President (changing them to President-elect). [2] MarkRobbins (talk) 10:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Putting congratulations

I acknowledge, thank you. --People's Alliance for Democracy (talk) 11:31, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

O.K. --People's Alliance for Democracy (talk) 16:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

An article you created maybe deleted soon: Tools which can help you

The article you created: Significant Emotional Event may be deleted from Wikipedia.

There is an ongoing debate about whether your article should be deleted here:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Significant Emotional Event.

The faster you respond on this page, the better chance the article you created can be saved.

Finding sources which mention the topic of your article is the very best way to avoid an article being deleted {{Findsources3}}:

Find sources for Significant Emotional Event: google news recent, google news old, google books, google scholar, NYT recent, NYT old, a9, msbooks, msacademic ...You can then cite these results in the Article for deletion discussion.

Also, there are several tools and helpful editors on Wikipedia who can help you:

1. List the page on Article Rescue Squadron. You can get help listing your page on the Article Rescue Squadron talk page.

2. At any time, you can ask any administrator to move your article to a special page. (Called userfication)

3. You can request a mentor to help explain all of the complex rules that editors use to get a page deleted: Wikipedia:Adopt-a-User. But don't wait for a mentor to respond to you before responding on the article for deletion page.

4. When trying to delete a page, veteran editors love to use a lot of rule acronyms. Don't let these acronyms intimidate you. Here is a list of acronyms you can use yourself: WP:Deletion debate acronyms which may support the page you created being kept.

If your page is deleted, you also have many options available. Good luck! Ikip (talk) 19:47, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Rape and interracial statistics

Dude why do you hold my contribution to a higher standard?Brutanti (talk) 02:55, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I added a header here and responded on your Talk page, as is normal practice. Simesa (talk) 10:12, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Orphans and Foundlings Project Proposal

Hello Simesa, we're trying to start up a new project to cover the adoption and related articles. Would you support it?

• Orphans and Foundlings Project ProposalTobit2 (talk) 18:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Canvassing on Lyme disease

See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Canvassing_on_Lyme_disease. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:01, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

You are suspected of sockpuppetry, which means that someone suspects you of using multiple Wikipedia accounts for prohibited purposes. Please make yourself familiar with the notes for the suspect, then respond to the evidence at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Simesa. Thank you. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:31, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Just a note to say that this case was declined, since the evidence suggested that this may involve editing on behalf of banned users, rather than multiple accounts. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:45, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Further to the above, I'd just like to repeat the advice I've left on the AN thread. Even when an editor is acting in good faith and with the best of intentions, appearing to proxy for banned users can have serious consequences. Your edit history shows you to be a fine editor with a wide range of valuable contributions, and I don't believe that you would intentionally get yourself into difficulties with Wikipedia policy. However, you have stepped into a bit of a mire at the Lyme disease article, which has a long history of disruptive activism coordinated off-site in forums such as the one you refer to. Editors and watching admins there are understandably wary of anyone who appears to be promoting the same agenda as the Lyme activist groups, so in the light of the above diff I'd urge you to be doubly careful about reliable sourcing for your edits, abiding by talk-page consensus, and discussing potentially controversial edits before making them. All the best, and thank you for your many contributions to our encyclopedia. EyeSerene^talk 20:25, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

This being my first attempt at contact with that editor (who I have no reason to suspect I knew under any other ID), I'm not sure why someone would assume I could know that he/she had been banned. In any event, no one asked me to edit Lyme disease, nor has anyone but my wife (who has chronic Lyme disease) commented on any of my edits other than on the article's pages. Neither of us knew that Healingwell.com existed until about five minutes ago.

I suggest instead that the article really is massively deficient. The ELISA test is documented as being so grossly unreliable that even the CDC says not to diagnose based on it. And there actually is very little balance to the Controversy and politics section. MastCell even refuses to allow the attachment of a List of Lyme support groups.

However, I'm not unduly worried. As I stated on the Noticeboard, the real action is now at the federal level (recognition of which was also edited out) and we can expect large changes to result. Simesa (talk) 21:35, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I think the reaction probably stems from previous experiences on the Lyme disease article, where there were massive issues with abusive editing and inappropriate use of alternate accounts. I don't think that simply interacting with someone who was once banned from Wikipedia is an issue, though I think EyeSerene's advice is sound.

I won't argue about diagnostic testing here. Regarding the controversy section, I'm not sure what you think is missing. It cites reliable sources - the New York Times, the New England Journal of Medicine, etc - and it gives both Blumenthal's and the IDSA's view of the antitrust investigation, sourced to their own words. I don't know how to write a controversy section any differently than that.

I don't think that the lymenet.org link is appropriate for a couple of reasons. As a general matter, we avoid links to support groups in our disease articles. That avoidance is all the more strong when a site takes a partisan (and minoritarian) stance on an active controversy, and when it is specifically listed in a medical journal as providing inaccurate information about Lyme disease. I wasn't trying to blow you off when I suggested DMOZ - it really may be a more appropriate place to list the link, and DMOZ is linked from the Lyme disease article.

As to turning to the legislative arena, I'm curious whether you really think that is a good idea, either in this specific case or as a general precedent. If a case can't be made to the scientific community, is the right answer to turn to pressuring elected officials to legislate around the current scientific understanding? Extrapolate that approach. Medical science tells us that vaccines are safe, effective, and perhaps the greatest public-health advance in human history. A vocal group of activists think they're dangerous, though they have failed rather epically to prove their case in the scientific arena. Suppose that they are able, through organization, lobbying, pressure, etc, to convince a quorum of politicians to legislate their minoritarian view into law. Does that seem like a good outcome? The intervention of politicians into specific scientific and medical questions is uniformly disastrous (Terri Schiavo springs immediately to mind).

If I were to generalize about people in the medical community, I would say that they are genuinely aware of the suffering that people experience, even if they disagree about the pathophysiologic causes; and that they are open to scientifically sound arguments, but react viscerally against harassment, death threats, intimidation, politically motivated investigations, and other attacks levied against people whose scientific conclusions dare to conflict with the agendas of a few advocacy groups.

You implied in your edit summary that people turn to intimidation tactics when the facts aren't on their side. But that's exactly the shape things are taking in the world of Lyme disease: instead of making a scientific case, it's all about vilifying individual scientists and applying political pressure. I know this may seem appealing in the short run, but it's bad in the long run. It's bad for science, because the minute that politicians start making medical decisions, we're all in deep, deep trouble. And it's actually bad for the people suffering from Lyme disease - I can tell you that no researcher in their right mind would want to enter a field where they'll be demonized, stalked, investigated, and threatened with death if their findings don't match up with the agenda of a pressure group.

That may be why seeing the drop-off in Lyme-disease conferences and academic events. In the end, if researchers abandon Lyme disease in favor of safer and saner fields of study, the people who pay the price will be the people suffering from Lyme disease, which is why I think the current round of tactics is so short-sighted. MastCell ^Talk 22:04, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I have to correct a statement above - My wife has done far more informal reading and research about Lyme disease than I have, and I had her double-check her notes and e-mails. We found that a number of months ago she joined Healingwell.com, but has not posted to them nor received posts from them (ADDENDA: after the initial "hellos"). As for her reading the website she says she hasn't since joining, but I have no way to verify that. (This may seem like an odd post, but I have a policy of correcting all errors.) I'll be back to read the above in a minute. Simesa (talk) 23:41, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Have just posted on noticeboard (after a long futile wait for a test to complete) and have to turn in now. Will work on this again tomorrow. Simesa (talk) 01:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

No pressure. I didn't mean to put you on the spot. You seem like a genuinely thoughtful and intelligent person who's reached a conclusion very different my own, so my instinct is to try to explain why I think the way I do. I may very well be missing something important; at the very least, I'd be curious about your thoughts on the subject, to the extent you're willing to share them, in the interest of better understanding the various aspects of the issue. Have a good evening. MastCell ^Talk 05:23, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

(←)Thank you Simesa for your helpful and informative responses - if only all editors were as accommodating, we admins would have a much easier job ;) I'd like to emphatically say that what you or your family do off-Wikipedia is your business alone, so please don't feel you need to justify it. It's only where we suspect that off-site activism is translating into on-site activity that we become concerned... and I'm completely happy to accept your assurances that you've been involved in nothing of the sort and your opinions are arrived at independently and are entirely your own. As Tim Vickers notes on the AN thread, the timing of your RfC and the off-site canvassing is apparently an unfortunate coincidence to which you're only very marginally connected, if at all.

Regarding the content on the Lyme disease article, I have no knowledge of the subject (and in fact have only skimmed the article - deliberately so in order to remain uninvolved). I believe, having established your good faith, your views will be welcome on the article. As MastCell implies (and in line with WP:NPOV), achieving the best, most neutral coverage sometimes requires editors of opposite viewpoints who are willing to engage collegiately. It's a shame that the activities of others have poisoned the atmosphere to the extent that this was felt necessary, but hopefully all parties are now in a position to move on in line with WP:MED guidelines and our neutrality and reliable sourcing policies. All the best, EyeSerene^talk 08:21, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm up and owe MastCell a response. Will read your post now. Simesa (talk) 10:00, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

A number of thoughts rush to mind.

First, "chronic Lyme disease" does exist - I only have to count the number of painkillers my very-drug-averse wife has to take to be able to continue to function. She can feel the pronounced Herxheimer Reaction kick in after each doxycycline. She has a horde of matching symptoms (being Mensa, she has made copious notes for her doctor). But she passed two initial screening tests (which is partly why it took nine months to diagnose her). We will be seeing an ID specialist very soon (the waiting list was huge).

The support group we attended packed the meeting room, and that was for an obscure group my wife found on her own. The horror stories are legend, such as the fellow we met who had once gone blind and was in a wheelchair and had bounced back after IV-antibiotic treatment.

No one knows how many people have Lyme disease. The CDC is supposed to get reports, but Lyme disease is horribly under-diagnosed and allegedly grossly under-reported - and often not suspected at all. The 20,000 cases a year is clearly a vast under-estimate. Also, the blood-based screening tests are notorious for false negatives -- a skin-biopsy PCR (or perhaps from joint fluid) seems to be the most accurate, but really a definitive diagnostic test is desperately needed.

Allegedly (I'm trying to obtain a source for this) over 50 doctors have been disciplined for treating patients with long-term antibiotics. Something has to be wrong there, our medical system is such that I can't see 50 of our brightest going so wildly astray. What drove them to risk their licenses by continuing non-recommended treatment of their patients? Over 50 doctors being disciplined for basically the same reason is notable.

I tend to side with the doctor treating the patient. Having been an Army officer, I know the importance of allowing the battlefield leader maximum flexibility - after all, he sees what's actually happening. My job was to support him and provide him the knowledge, tools and resources he might need. Rhode Island and Connecticut apparently agreed.

The article currently doesn't mention the federal bill. A mere bill I wouldn't have cited - but when six senators bi-partisanly co-sponsor a bill, that's some horsepower. I suspect we'd have seen action already if there weren't so many more-major crises on-going at the moment. Somebody somewhere in large numbers is writing their congressmen, and that's notable.

I'm not surprised Alan Steere was stalked - there are many people who don't take kindly to having the doctor that treats their ailing loved one driven out of business (and the general opinion of the community of sufferers is that the insurance companies are maliciously persecuting such doctors). It does surpirse me that his newest paper, summarized here, was not left in the article.

Now the question before us is how we represent this in the article. I don't believe in writing persuasive articles - my belief is that we should report the vast majority of the facts in a balanced way and let the reader decide what to think. I also believe that we should provide external links to further information.

I don't see the existence of a single Lyme support group as worthy of mention in Wikipedia (I wouldn't list each obscure rugby player either, although I find that we do). However, a list of a large number of such groups that are relevant to the topic, that's something of interest to the general reader (it wouldn't be to a doctor, but then again I don't believe that doctors should be getting medical information from Wikipedia).

I wouldn't worry too much about young professionals avoiding Infectious Diseases because of this controversy - if I were them, I'd see this as a growth field. My attitude has always been "march to the sound of the guns". Any fireman will tell you that a good fire brings in more volunteers. As President Obama noted in his speech to the AMA here, doctors chose their field so they could practice.

In sum, I do see this issue as a good-sized fire. Yes, our society should have properly trained the fire-fighters and provided them with the necessary tools and resources - but it's a "come as you are war" and right now the doctors have to concentrate on putting out the fire. I see our mission here as reporting what the situation is, not as trying to persuade anyone as to what they should be doing during it. Simesa (talk) 11:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

From my reading of the literature, the question isn't if there are long-term effects from having been exposed to Lyme disease, that is clearly true. Instead the difference of opinion is over if these long-term effects are due to an active infection, or are due to autoimmune reactions that were induced by the infection and last well after the bacteria have been cleared from the body. This autoimmune explanation is plausible since "molecular mimicry" may be a way that many different types of pathogens hide from the immune system by trying to resemble parts of their host (see this review for an overview). Tim Vickers (talk) 20:46, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I re-read the article and I understand the hypothesis - I clearly misunderstood what "antibiotic-refractory arthritis" meant.

Please note that such arthritis doesn't explain my wife's numerous other symptoms despite having taken the maximum prescribed treatment of doxycycline. We will be having her retested, but right now all we know with certainty is that if she stops taking the antibiotic, she quickly begins getting noticeably worse.

The Immunological Response section probably should be higher up, as it clearly is now regarded as a high-likelihood explanation. (I don't regard it as such, but articles aren't supposed to be based on our opinions.) Simesa (talk) 21:29, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Hopefully she will recover, it is a terrible disease to have to deal with. It is possible that doxycycline might be reducing her symptoms through its anti-inflammatory effects. This drug has been approved as a treatment for other chronic inflammatory syndromes (see this review and PMID 16443056 for example). I don't know if there have been any trials of other immunosuppressive drugs in post-Lyme syndrome, but this isn't a new idea (see PMID 19301981, just published) Tim Vickers (talk) 22:11, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be inappropriate of me to dispute your understanding of a loved one's health. Watching someone close suffer with a chronic medical condition - especially when answers are hard to come by - is incredibly difficult. I will just say that regardless of what approaches are taken, I hope that they're successful and that your wife feels better.

I think Lyme disease is almost certainly grossly underdiagnosed and underreported. A more useful screening test would be hugely important. I can't help feeling like this goes back to an earlier issue, though - where will this test come from? Can any screening test really get a fair hearing when there are so many entrenched and aggressively promoted agendas? Let's say a new screening test is developed, and it confirms that some of these symptoms and situations have causes other than Lyme disease. Would such a finding be accepted by the most vocal elements of the community? My concern is that some proportion of this community cannot be convinced or dissuaded; if they don't accept the evaluations of the NIH, the CDC, the IDSA, the AAN, and so forth now, then how likely are they to accept findings by any combination of scientific bodies if those findings don't meet their preconceived expectations?

On the other hand, I think most physicians could be convinced of the utility of antibiotics, given supporting data. The problem is that right now, that data is largely in the form of anecdotes. You can't argue with an anecdotal success - if someone feels better, then they feel better - but you also can't generalize anecdotal success to general courses of action without the help of some sort of systematic evaluation. My reading of the randomized trials done so far is that they generally have either found no benefit, or inconsistent and relatively small benefits. Maybe these trials were poorly done; maybe the entry criteria or the interventions were poorly chosen; maybe the follow-up wasn't long enough or the endpoints were invalid. Clinical trials have a hard time disproving something conclusively, because there are always untested permutations out there. But I think it's at least reasonable to conclude that the benefits of antibiotics haven't been demonstrated in a rigorous, scientific fashion, and to ask for convincing evidence before prescribing a lengthy, involved intervention which is clearly not risk-free either on the individual or societal level (c.f. antibiotic resistance).

I'm generally in favor of providing maximum autonomy to the individual physician actually treating the patient. I'm not sure I'd agree with disciplinary proceedings on the basis of long-term antibiotics for Lyme disease, though without specifics I don't know if these were parts of a larger picture of poor practice or violations. Certainly if a law is passed - or even if the bill receives significant attention in reliable secondary sources - then it would be notable for the purposes of our article.

I'm not surprised that Allan Steere has been stalked and harassed; the treatment meted out to scientists who dared to critically examine and study the claimed link between vaccines and autism has robbed me of any illusions I may have had in that regard. It could be worse, I guess; it's not as bad as the sort of thing abortion providers face, and no one's been attacked yet - though with the ferocity of rhetoric out there on the Internet, I wonder sometimes. I don't see the link between Allan Steere and driving good doctors out of business. Allan Steere is one scientist, who does research and reports his results. The focus on him personally (and Gary Wormser, and a few others) is alarming - not just from a human standpoint, but from a much broader conceptual standpoint. Instead of focusing on the scientific question, and trying to get at the truth, people have identified a few individuals whom they see as standing in the way, and targeted those individuals to be silenced.

I do agree with you that the article should not seek to persuade; I'm just sharing some personal opinions here, on your user-talk page, which I hope is OK with you (if not, I'll stop). But an article that gives 50% time to the "mainstream" and 50% time to ILADS isn't really neutral; it's significantly skewed, because it falsely implies that these positions are equally represented among experts in the field. They're not; maybe someday they will be, at which point Wikipedia will need to be updated, but right now one is clearly better-represented and more subscribed-to than the other.

As to the impact on younger researchers, it's hard to say. Certainly I think altruism, or the desire to tackle the biggest problems, is a motivator - certainly I chose my field based in part on where I saw the greatest need. But against that, I think most people who work in the sciences find it incredibly frustrating to see good science hobbled or defeated by politics, prejudices, hidden agendas, or just plain irrationality. And beyond a certain point, intimidation is successful. Most people don't want to be vilified, or have themselves and their families threatened, just for doing their job. Because of the concerted and misguided effort to blame everything on vaccines, there is little ongoing research into new vaccines anymore, which is going to bite us in the ass in a big way in the next 10 or 20 years. Large areas of the intermontane West have few or no abortion providers. After a certain point, intimidation works, and with a few noble exceptions, the people who could make a difference conclude that it's just not worth it anymore. MastCell ^Talk 22:17, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Note from CleverCrow

I feel a mention of the history behind the Attonrey general's lawsuit is necessary to see that the controvery has been applied by a government source. Otherwise, the content makes it appear that the controvery has no backing. I suggest including a combination of my verbiage and that the re-hearing is scheduled is a fair and accurate reading. I apologize, if this conversation may be in the wrong place. It is my first time using 'talk' to communicate with another contributor. Clevercrow (talk) 17:41, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of moving your note to the bottom of my talk page under a new header, as is normal. I normally would reply just here, but will also reply on your talk page.

I didn't remove your text, although I was trying to modify iot at the time it was removed. I felt that the the re-hearing is a highly-notable event whose imminent date belonged tagged to the mention of controversy (however minimalized) in the Intro. I added the date, but it was also removed.

This is a highly-controversial topic with apparently just a couple of editors working at all on it. I suggest reading the entire article thoroughly and proposing changes on the Discussion (called "Talk") page. Simesa (talk) 17:55, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Two topics, civil rights and railroad museum

Hi. First, there is a fairly large railroad museum in Worthington, Ohio, which isn't on the List, do you know of it? Second, civil rights, an area I edit as well, and have enjoyed the pages you've worked on. I have a topic on the United States discussion page which you may have an interest in. Any comments welcome. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:39, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposed Move

Just a friendly notice that I have made a formal request to move three pages at Talk:African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968). Racepacket (talk) 18:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Nuclear Security Summit (2010)

Thanks for your help on Nuclear Security Summit (2010) and for starting Nuclear Security Summit (2012). I was really surprised that no one had started the 2010 article as of yesterday morning so I went ahead with it. Regards—Diiscool (talk) 16:40, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Chernobyl Disaster

Hi, there is a discussion about moving the "Chernobyl Disaster" page to "Chernobyl Accident", that you may want to contribute to. The discussion is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chernobyl_disaster

Hi. I agree with your comment in that correspondence disaster on the Chernobyl "incident". The Titanic or the Hindenburg aren't referred to as accidents. These are ominously single titled incidents preceded by the word THE.

DYK

Hi, I saw this edit summary, and have just one comment; don't forget to bold the article you expanded in the hook! :) —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 18:44, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, I'm glad that was my only slip-up in the process! I'll go fix it now. Simesa (talk) 18:49, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

No problem. :) —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 19:34, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Electrical energy efficiency on farms

I have rolled back your edits to Electrical energy efficiency on farms since I feel it should not exist as a redirect to the target page. It adds to the systemic bias within Wikipedia. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 07:04, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for (not!) notifying me when you first nominated the page for ASD - it was up for DYK. Fortunately I was awake (it's only 3 am here) and able to transfer the links before they were obliterated. Simesa (talk) 07:10, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Electrical energy efficiency on United States farms

Thanks for this article Victuallers (talk) 08:02, 5 May 2010 (UTC)