User talk:Anomalapropos

Anomalapropos, you are invited to the Teahouse!

Hi Anomalapropos! Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia.
Be our guest at the Teahouse! The Teahouse is a friendly space where new editors can ask questions about contributing to Wikipedia and get help from experienced editors like Masumrezarock100 (talk).

Visit the Teahouse

We hope to see you there!

Delivered by HostBot on behalf of the Teahouse hosts

16:05, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions for biographies

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in living or recently deceased people, and edits relating to the subject (living or recently deceased) of such biographical articles. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor. Bishonen | talk 08:41, 21 May 2019 (UTC).[reply]

Template:Z33

The alert above refers to your editing of Amy Sequenzia. What is and isn't a reliable source depends on what it's offered as a source for. Novella's blog is a reliable source for his own opinion. What is stated in the article is that this is Novella's opinion. Please see WP:SELFSOURCE. I have no idea what "original research" has to do with it (and you have not been able to clarify it in the talkpage discussion or anywhere else). When I saw this on the reliable sources noticeboard, I removed the irrelevant OR tag, which you had added. You reverted it back in, even though you had just before stated on the talkpage that "Maybe I misinterpreted WP:NOR and should have put something else instead". And yet you edit warred to put it back in? That's pretty headlong editing, and is the reason I'm informing you of the special rules for biography articles. You're supposed to be especially careful with those articles, and not, for instance, insert tags you even doubt yourself. I understand that you're a new editor and therefore deserve special consideration, but being new is also a good reason against aggressive editing. Bishonen | talk 08:45, 21 May 2019 (UTC).[reply]

I apologize. I'm growing really frustrated with this article because the people who are editing it are solely interested in the facilitated communication "pseudoscience" portion of the article (I notice they're all interested in "fringe" topics), and I am being challenged now for calling them on it. I feel ganged up on and I don't know how to proceed.

Can you please explain to me why his opinion belongs on Sequenzia's article? As opposed to literally anyone else's opinion about her? Why is his particular opinion relevant, and particularly given it is an inflammatory opinion, though the other editors don't seem to think it is? I know you've read the talk page so maybe you can actually clarify this for me instead of dancing around it like everyone else is? Thank you. --Anomalapropos (talk) 08:53, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Even on the page you linked me, it says that self-published sources can only be used if "it does not involve claims about third parties (such as people, organizations, or other entities)."

This is Novella's blog... stating his opinion... about a woman he has never met. And people keep insisting to me that it belongs in her article. I'm honestly just so confused right now. I've repeated this over and over, and I keep including quotes to Wikipedia policy but people keep coming at me, twisting my words to claim I'm using straw men arguments, and then citing new Wikipedia policy at me which still supports my main assertion that what he thinks of Amy Sequenzia has no place on Amy Sequenzia's article. Am I wrong? Because according to the precedent this sets, I could write an opinion about anyone, and then someone could use my blog as a source on Wikipedia. --Anomalapropos (talk) 09:09, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again. I'll try to make some suggestions for how you can proceed.

But before I do, I'll just say I think it's reasonable to show in Sequenzia's article that there are people who doubt the validity of facilitated communication and specifically doubt its validity in Sequenzia's case. There is criticism out there, by respectable voices, so the fact of criticism needs to be acknowledged in the article. We don't ignore notable criticism in BLPs for the purpose of keeping them respectful. As for the choice of Novella for this acknowledgement, he is very well-known, especially as one of the original founders of the New England Skeptical Society. Compare our very substantial article Steven Novella. Even Novella's blog Neurologica (started in 2007) is well-known, see [1]. It seems to me that he's a good choice as an example of criticism.

But you're very welcome to try to find a different example that you think is better, and to suggest it on the talkpage as an alternative to Novella.

Another useful thing you can do, perhaps indeed the most useful thing, would be to try to find a defense of FC, best of all specifically a defense of it in Sequenzia's case, by someone as weighty and well-known as Novella. (A simple, if perhaps simplistic, way of finding how well-known people are is to check if they have a Wikipedia article and what it says.) I'm sure you realize that the defense by Sequenzia currently in the article isn't as weighty as that would be, though it's better than nothing. Good luck. Bishonen | talk 10:26, 21 May 2019 (UTC).[reply]

I'll just say that the discussion about including Novella's criticism was already discussed on the BLP page, and an admin at that time said it wasn't appropriate, and also that we shouldn't be using Sequenzia's article to debate FC. I also believe that someone brought it to the RS board to subvert the opinion of that admin. (Considering he is involved in he discussion on the BLP notice board as well, he already knows it was being discussed.) But I'd prefer to continue that discussion over there. --Anomalapropos (talk) 10:33, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't matter whether an admin (Masem) said it or someone else. The opinion of an admin on content questions isn't more important than the opinions of other people. (I'm an admin too, if it comes to that.) Please try to assume good faith of editors, such as in this case Slatersteven; your notion that he went to the reliable sources noticeboard to "subvert the opinion of [an] admin" is far-fetched. He asked specifically about your tag "original research", and the RSN is IMO the best place for that. Discussing whether Novella's opinion belongs in the article is one thing; impugning the source for his opinion is another. Do please click on WP:AGF and read it; it's one of our oldest, best-known and most important principles for discussion. Since you don't care for my suggestions, do feel free to continue the discussion somewhere else; I'm done. Bishonen | talk 10:52, 21 May 2019 (UTC).[reply]

Hey there!

Hi, Anomalapropos! So I see you've been having some conflict with other editors. That can be really frustrating, but it's not unusual when you've just started editing, and a well-intentioned editor can get past it. Why don't you just tell me what's frustrating you? --valereee (talk) 21:17, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya, and thanks for volunteering to talk it out with me. Part of the problem can be seen above on my Talk page where I've sort of gone over the issue. The whole conflict is kind of just... spread out over a number of pages now.

I'll try and explain it in the most concise way that I can, but I'll start with the background: I saw that someone had included a criticism in Amy Sequenzia's article that I didn't think should be there. Sequenzia is a non-speaking disabled person who uses facilitated communication to write and speak. (She has motor coordination issues and apraxia of speech-type issues; FC in this case means that she has someone touching her elbow or shoulder to stabilize her movements, and this enables her to type.)

However, facilitated communication is often called a pseudoscience, because studies conducted immediately after its introduction to the US concluded that the communication was being influenced by the person who is making physical contact with them. There have been a lot of studies following up on it that have been able to prove it is effective, but they aren't given a lot of attention because of the previous studies.

So that's where we start. I'll point-form the rest with some links.

I felt that the criticism was unwarranted, but I wasn't sure, so I posted on the BLP noticeboard to get some information on this. (Link)
There were some responses. I understood the responses to mean that I was correct; we shouldn't use Sequenzia's article as a grounds for arguing over whether FC is valid, and that the skeptic's blog isn't a reliable source about someone has no evidence for which to back up his claims. (I interpreted this to be part of the "no original research" rule, but I've subsequently been told I might have been wrong.)
I thought the issue was resolved, but another editor reworded the criticism and put it back in the article. This began a debate on the Talk page. (Link)
I also noted that the issue was brought to the "Fringe" notice board, and a lot of the editors who subsequently came to Sequenzia's page were, of course, all of the opinion that FC is pseudoscience. I feel like a lot of the resulting back and forth consisted of misinterpretations of what I was saying and the ways in which I was trying to clarify.
Despite my own resolve to try and stay calm and collected, at least one of the other editors was clearly getting annoyed with me, called my logic "crazy" and "ignorant," asked me if I was "misrepresenting" in order to "score points," and when I asked him not to name-call, he said he didn't call me crazy, he called my reasoning crazy (as if this was somehow a substantially nicer way to debate me). At this point, of course, I was very frustrated, but I didn't want to call it incivility because I was outnumbered by people who disagreed with me.
Somewhere in this, I tagged the blog I was initially questioning with the WP:OR tag. An editor brought this to the RS board to clarify, and despite the BLP noticeboard saying it wasn't an RS, an admin over there decided it was and reverted my change.
Annoyed by the entire situation, I reverted the change back, and received the notice above about discretionary sanctions. Even in trying to understand this decision, the admin involved seems to think I was acting in bad faith. (See above on my talk page)

And that's the gist of what's frustrating me, really. It feels like, no matter how many questions I ask, or how I word things, or whether I am being nice or not, people are misinterpreting where I'm coming from and assuming that my asking for clarification is me trying to be disruptive. I really and truly am not trying to be disruptive.

I'm also upset that after this whole debate, in which I'm trying to be as civil as possible while my competency is being called into question, I'm the one who ends up with a warning. I honestly just feel so ganged up on that it's hard to want to continue contributing at all. It doesn't help the perception that I'm being ganged up on when it looks like all of these editors know each other from the fringe board.

I guess I just really needed someone outside of it to look at everything and tell me that they can see that I was trying to understand and/or make the other person understand and that I just wasn't doing a good job of it, rather than being purposefully disruptive. I'm trying really hard, and I'm putting a lot of time and effort into this particular issue, and to just keep getting shot down at every turn by people who dismiss me is so, so disheartening.

I don't want to pursue any kind of incivility action against the other editor, but if someone could just confirm that he was out of line and I'm not imagining it, that would be great. Despite him taking it back, his last comment to me claimed that my worldview was removed from reality, which really just solidified in my mind that he does, in fact, think that I'm crazy (but then tells me that I'm the one who doesn't want a fruitful discussion.)

Thanks for reading. I do think that just having a space to say this is helpful, and I wanted to say it away from everyone else who was involved. --Anomalapropos (talk) 22:02, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Even after I have shared a very long list of sources, putting a lot of work into copying and pasting them, formatting them, and linking everything, I received this comment from another person from the fringe board:

"Instead of carpet bombing us with this list of possible stuff, why don't you do the work for us and cut the list down to your top four. Otherwise, I'm off to do something fruitful. Thanks."

Telling me "do the work for us" even though I just spent a ton of my time trying to offer sources. I honestly can't even take this anymore. I just don't understand what they want from me. Please tell me what I'm missing... --Anomalapropos (talk) 22:32, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Anomalapropos, there's a lot for me to try to go over here, as I haven't seen any of the discussion until now, and with time of day and an appointment tomorrow morning, I probably won't be able to give it justice as far as time and attention until late morning US Eastern tomorrow. I do see that you are trying to contribute in good faith, and I want to assure you that even though it may not feel like it to you right now, 99%+ of experienced editors here are doing the same. I know of FC, and I'm aware of both the debunkings and the undebunkings. For now, I'd encourage you to disconnect. I'll do a thorough go-through of the whole thing, including what you've provided, tomorrow late morning US Eastern, and I'll post here once I've had a chance to do that. valereee (talk) 23:07, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Just developed a second appointment tomorrow late morning, so won't be back until noonish, but I'll start then --valereee (talk) 00:03, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

No problem at all. I very much appreciate your letting me know and your willingness to engage. --Anomalapropos (talk) 00:12, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it is because you keep getting the same answer, and when you do not get the answer you want you ask the question again. Let me explain (again).

wp:fringe makes it clear we do not give as much weight to fringe theorists as acknowledged experts. It does not matter if a particular fringe exponent has not had their particular claims tested, if they are using a pseudoscience practice we do not have to have their use of it tested (the practice itself already falls foul of out fringe theory polices). wp:sps makes it clear that a blog or post by a qualified expert is usable for their claims. Thus wp:weight means we cannot give the same weight to a fringe theory PRACTICE as we do to the experts who question it. We can no more use the argument "but they have not been tested" with one pseudoscience as we could with mediums, or qeuja boards or automatic writing or false memory syndrome or a plethora of other practices whose exponents use the same arguments.Slatersteven (talk) 12:05, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I started this conversation on my own page to get away from you and the other editors. I've removed Sequenzia's talk page from my watchlist, and I'm not contributing at this time. Please don't try to continue the conversation here. Thanks. --Anomalapropos (talk) 16:40, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

from valereee

Starting a new section to make the page easier to navigate. From the read through of the various pages, there are three main questions to talk about. I'm going to start with the warning first, as that's the most straightforward to deal with. If you're referring to the 'discretionary sanctions' notification Bishonen posted above here on your talk page, that's more a message often provided to newer users like yourself who may not know that the topic area you're editing has a very long and extremely complicated and usually highly contentious history here on WP. You aren't being warned that you're about to be punished; you're being warned that you may not realize you're stepping into a quagmire and that it might be better if you waited until you have some experience with WP. That's not to say you couldn't get yourself into trouble by ignoring the advice a highly experienced and well-intentioned editor is offering you: learn to walk before you try to climb Mt Everest. In general as long as you're maintaining civility in talk page discussions, you're fine, but in discretionary sanctions areas experienced editors are less patient with editors who continue to arge the same point, even with civility, because it takes up a lot of volunteer time to go over similar ground with each new editor who has the same questions.

Now, that doesn't mean you don't have a point, which brings us to the second question: Novella's blog. I actually think you make a very strong point: What is being published even by an expert on his blog -- that is, with no peer review, with no conferred authority or oversight by the process of traditional publication, with no other reliable source reporting on it -- should never be used to make a contentious and potentially libellous assertion in the BLP of another person about that other person. If we can't find someone commenting on it in some reliable source, we shouldn't be using it. We could argue that it could be used to source Novella's opinion on the page about Novella, but we should never be publishing an opinion that could be libellous -- even if it's verifiable that it's Novella's opinion about Sequenzia, which it seems to be -- on the page about Sequenzia if no other reliable source is commenting on that opinion. If we want to include that opinion in the article about Sequenzia, we need to find someone somewhere who is commenting on it in a reliable source.

That said, I would very strongly recommend that this is not at this time the hill you want to die on. Because this is a discretionary sanctions area, because you are new and other editors don't know you yet, you unfortunately aren't in a good position to try to make these arguments. It's not fair, but there it is. If you had a history of several months and many hundreds of constructive edits and a reputation for collaborative collegial work, you'd be in a much stronger position to start a debate. People would be more patient about hearing you out. And you'd also have the experience to know some of the finer points of how to conduct that debate.

Which leads us to your third question: the very long list of sources. For making an argument on WP, you never want to give anyone you're trying to convince in the debate a long list of sources; that's asking them to do an incredible amount of research to continue an argument they maybe aren't even interested in other than to protect the article. What you do -- and this is something you can do behind the scenes while you're getting the experience you need before you try to tackle this -- is gather your sources. Choose the best three -- and that's not just the three that support your argument the most strongly, it's the three that everyone in the room will agree are absolutely reliable, that assess the issue from both sides, and that by an extremely conservative reading that includes context, support your assertion. No more than three, maybe four, tops. You provide links to online versions of those sources, you call out the exact quotes that support you within each, and you provide if appropriate the location of the quotes within the sources. If you don't have access to an online version, there are researchers here who can probably help.

At any rate, my advice is to edit other areas of interest for now -- anything noncontentious, lol -- and keep this on the back burner. I know that probably isn't what you want to hear.

Finally, and this is purely my opinion, not WP policy, and probably qualifies as unasked-for advice: try to ignore anything that feels like incivility. Stay far, far away from the 'drama boards' -- the notice boards where behavioral issues are reported -- even if you think someone else is breaking behavior-related rules. Only go there if someone else takes you there. It's a no-win; if you don't believe me, put one of them on your watch list and watch a few cases as they progress. When you're responding to someone who has made comments that feel like incivility, just ignore those comments and respond only to the argument. Reacting to anything like that only distracts attention from the argument you're making and ends up creating a wall of text, while ignoring them makes you look like the adult in the room. I know it's hard, but pretend anything that feels that way just isn't even there, I promise it's the best option. Eyes on the prize.

Sorry for the delay in responding. I hope this is helpful. Ping me when/if you want to continue to discuss, as while I have your page on my watchlist, I sometimes miss things and never mind being pinged. --valereee (talk) 16:09, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again, valereee. :)

First of all -- sincerely, thank you one more time for going over everything. My intent was to get a fresh set of eyes on everything as opposed to the same argument over again. (One of the editors saw I'd started this conversation on my Talk page and came here to try and rehash the argument, but the problem isn't that I don't understand the fringe policy; the problem is that they aren't open considering that the position isn't fringe, which would mean other policies might be relevant. Anyway, it doesn't matter now because I'm bowing out.)

I appreciate the input on the Novella blog, and you are right that it's a hill I shouldn't die on at this time. It might have been (or might not have been) guessed that I have a bit of an emotional tie to the issue. (I'm autistic myself, and the idea of one of my community members being discredited obviously makes me angry.) And I do think the whole situation has made it clear that more experience might yield better results when trying to debate something quite this ... maybe "murky" is the right word. The problem, in my view, is that a few of my disagreeing editors don't seem to think the statement is contentious or potentially libellous. (In fact, when I suggested libel seems to be when the debate got a little more fierce.) That refusal to engage with emotion is really what bugs me. (I realize appeal to emotion is a logical fallacy, but it's not always wrong to invoke it.)

That said, your acknowledgement that the situation is not as cut-and-dry as the rest are making it seem is really what was important to me here. To continue to try and question the point and be told I'm being crazy or ignorant was the frustrating bit; they made it seem like I had no salient points worth considering at all. You've pointed out where I did, and so I appreciate that.

Lastly -- don't sweat it about unasked-for advice. I did ask for advice as a whole, and I appreciate any and all input, particularly anything that, at its heart, is said in the interest of holding my sanity together to be frank. I had a look over all of the incivility articles once I started think people were being rude, and I came to the same conclusion that trying to report incivility would be a long and arduous process that might be better served by completely ignoring it (particularly if one is like me with emotional reactivity).

ANYWAY! Overall, thank you. (I know that responding to this is volunteer work and emotional labour of sorts, and you're doing me a kindness.) I do intend to take your advice and move on elsewhere for the time being. There are lots of other areas on WP that I might be able to apply a passion for fair reporting of facts. :p --Anomalapropos (talk) 17:59, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Anomalapropos, I'm so glad it was helpful, and you're very welcome. Yeah, 'libel' is a hot term here, we take it very seriously, but there's always disagreement about exactly what constitutes libel when we're reporting what others have said. FWIW, I don't actually think the article as written now necessarily is unfair. I don't agree with the inclusion of that source, but the way the information has been included is fairly straightforward and and does present both sides pretty objectively. Good for you for moving on, at least for now. Ping me anytime. --valereee (talk) 18:20, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Facilitated Communication

I see that you have altered several pages to reflect that facilitated communication is an effective technique. You may believe this, but unfortunately, this claim does not meet Wikipedia's standards of evidence for medical claims. Therefore I must revert your changes.--Wikiman2718 (talk) 17:35, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we are biased

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, once said:

"Wikipedia’s policies around [alternative medicine] are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals – that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately.

What we won’t do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of 'true scientific discourse'. It isn’t.[2][3][4][5]"

So yes, we are biased towards science and biased against pseudoscience.
We are biased towards astronomy, and biased against astrology.
We are biased towards chemistry, and biased against alchemy.
We are biased towards mathematics, and biased against numerology.
We are biased towards medicine, and biased against homeopathic medicine.
We are biased towards venipuncture, and biased against acupuncture.
We are biased towards cargo planes, and biased against cargo cults.
We are biased towards magnetic resonance imaging, and biased against magnetic therapy.
We are biased towards crops, and biased against crop circles.
We are biased towards laundry soap, and biased against laundry balls.
We are biased towards water treatment, and biased against magnetic water treatment.
We are biased towards electromagnetic fields, and biased against microlepton fields.
We are biased towards evolution, and biased against creationism.
We are biased towards geology, and biased against flood geology.
We are biased towards medical treatments that have been proven to be effective in double-blind clinical trials, and biased against medical treatments that are based upon preying on the gullible.
We are biased towards astronauts and cosmonauts, and biased against ancient astronauts.
We are biased towards psychology, and biased against phrenology.
We are biased towards mendelism, and biased against lysenkoism.

And we are not going to change. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:23, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This might be relevant to me if I were denying science in some way. --Anomalapropos (talk) 20:24, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ANI-notice

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. I have reported you for tendentious editing. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 21:47, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes or no

There is no yes or no answer, it depends on circumstance. Very few of us (are you?) experts in medical fields, so we rely on how the literature is reviewed and commented on by pees of the authors. In this case whilst there are studies that confirm FC, these all seem to be by proponents (in fact mostly professionals in the field), who are not using (for example) double blind test. Thus much of the confirmatory literature has been brought into doubt. I will comment no more on this.Slatersteven (talk) 17:28, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I was not asking for a yes or no answer on whether FC is efficient. I was asking for a yes or no about those specific types of edits. So there is a yes or no answer. "Yes, you are correct, those are the rules" or "No, you are not correct, those are not the rules."

My question was: removing people and information and everything about them that validates their use of a method of communication is appropriate because the method of communication is subject to WP:FRINGE and WP:MEDRS at this time? There is a yes or no answer, and voting to ban me depends on it. So I want to make sure I know exactly why. I said it in my words, because that is the way I understand it. Did I understand it right? Are my words correct, or are they incorrect? --Anomalapropos (talk) 17:35, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I see you decided not to follow my advice, lol. Okay, no, your words are not correct. Wikipedia covers movies and books about and by people using facilitated communication because those movies and books are covered at length in reliable sources. The fact FC is referred to within these articles has nothing to do with the article on FC. We do not see keeping those articles as in any way inconsistent with policy on theories that are currently considered fringe. We have articles on unicorns, too, stating that they're legendary, and on books and movies about unicorns in which we don't bother to mention that the unicorn is a legendary creature. Does that answer your question? --valereee (talk) 18:55, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:Valereee Yes... I got tempted, and I apologize. I likely will receive a topic ban on fringe topics now, but it might be better that way.

I contested major edits that were being made by someone who was saying that all sources which validate FC cannot be considered reliable. (This user has been successful in blanking the Amy Sequenzia page and nominating it for deletion, among other things.)

From what I do understand, when I contested these edits, I was violating the WP:FRINGE guidelines for reliable sourcing, and when I tried to ask for a reliable source on why it would be considered applicable under WP:FRINGE, I suppose I was meant to just accept the consensus rather than ask for the source they used to make the consensus.

It's frustrating, though, because it seems that at least some of the edits being made were wrong, but I shouldn't have kept trying to explain why? But that was why I went to the ANI board in the first place, and the same discussion just continued there... Sigh. --Anomalapropos (talk) 19:12, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Whether or not at least some of the edits were wrong, you've gone too far down this rabbit hole. Yes, maybe a topic ban would be a helpful thing. :) Arguing sourcing at fringe topics is not for beginners. --valereee (talk) 19:47, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Anomalapropos. I want to state my reaction to what I read at AN/I and then at this page, I don't know anything about the circumstances and concerns. I think you politely introduced some good points, some responses to your questions have not been polite. This happens sometimes, but it still bothers me when others are dismissed in this way. cygnis insignis 22:53, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Confusion

You expressed confusion about why the evidence that you presented has been dismissed. Guidelines on evidence con be complex, and I would like to help you understand the issue. Firstly, the article that you presented was an editorial, not a review. They might look the same, but they carry very different weights of evidence. That article made the claim that a preponderance of studies support the use of facilitated communication. This claim is not true, which is probably why the editorial was published in a non-reputable journal. I hope this helps you understand why your evidence was rejected. —Wikiman2718 (talk) 00:26, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Reference re: above:

Ahh, I see. Then the deciding factor in this case was the medline index. —Wikiman2718 (talk) 01:18, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Expanding reference. --Anomalapropos (talk) 01:24, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Reference: Articles Nominated for Deletion

Topic ban

Per consensus on the ANI report, you are now topic banned from all pages that pertain to WP:FRINGE and/or require WP:MEDRS. Hope you return and end up working productively in other areas. Thanks. El_C 17:29, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We don't beat around the bush, but we seek not to be jerks/unjust/treat others unfairly. Of course, adepts of fringe theories will always complain that they have been treated unfairly, when in fact they have been treated fairly according to the WP:RULES (which often mean that we are quite biased for WP:MAINSTREAM science). As I said, if the purpose of FC is enabling people do act like Hawking, that's a lofty purpose. If their only purpose is to "channel" severely autistic people, then FC is rightly regarded as WP:FRINGE. The overwhelming majority of WP:MEDRS-quality sources regard FC as being vastly of the later sort. There is of course a difference between the rights of autistic people and the rights of people who leech upon autistic people. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:36, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"science talk, science talk, i think i'm doing the right thing."

yeah, yeah, i heard you. go back to trying to segregate disabled people from the population. --Anomalapropos (talk) 17:38, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not use that kind of tactic, its one of the reasons you were banned. No one (I hope) wants to segregate the disabled (and for all you know many of us may have one form of disability or another), and may in fact...no I should not have to justify myself. But we have polices about things like fringe science, and they have to be obeyed, no matter how noble the cause. Please think carefully about how you reply, this is just a TBAN, you can still edit other topic areas. wp:agf is also a rule, please obey it.Slatersteven (talk) 17:44, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Also Tgeorgescu that was uncalled for.Slatersteven (talk) 17:45, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's just wild because the thing I am arguing is its inclusion under these very topics. And instead of explaining why WP:MEDRS applies, for example, I get banned from it, essentially "because we said so" it blows my damn mind lmao --Anomalapropos (talk) 17:59, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You are not alone, this is an offensive way to be treated. You are banned and they are grave-dancing, kicking you while you are down, this is their contribution to wikipedia. cygnis insignis 18:07, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Based on what I've learned, anyone just can show up en masse having already decided what policies apply and if you question why they're suddenly applying them, you get banned if you can't succinctly say why fast enough. No point sticking around even. --Anomalapropos (talk) 18:35, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There are some concerns within the culture in our community, I hope others can join in and their thoughtful contributions are welcomed. Editing here is enjoyable and satisfying, but this sort of thing seems unavoidable. Best wishes to you, whether you are staying or leaving. Sincerely, cygnis insignis 20:03, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Tgeorgescu, this indeed looks like gravedancing, I suggest you tread lightly and go do something else. (Sorry it took me a minute to figure this out, everyone.)El_C 18:22, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I want to apologize to Anomalapropos if I left the impression that I would imply that he/she would be leeching upon autistic people. This was not my intention. I am not a native speaker, so sometimes what I write could be ambiguous. Sometimes I speak too abstractly (in this case about what facilitators of communication do) and people take it personally (I did not mean Anomalapropos, I meant facilitators of communication). Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:23, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure parents who facilitate for their autistic children appreciate that you meant they were leeching on their kids' rights as opposed to me. --Anomalapropos (talk) 20:42, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]