User talk:Kiefer.Wolfowitz/Archive

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Afghan documents leak and child prostitution

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Request for Comment

"Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is triall, and triall is by what is contrary."

John Milton, Areopagitica

RFC/U discussion concerning you (Kiefer.Wolfowitz)

Hello, Kiefer.Wolfowitz. Please be aware that a user conduct request for comment has been filed concerning your conduct on Wikipedia. The RFC entry is located at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Kiefer.Wolfowitz, where you may want to participate. As requested, I will now ask a sitting arb, and one of your prefered administrators to confirm whether there is a basis for this RfC. Worm^TT · (talk) 18:37, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

My suggestion was that you ask somebody with greater ability and experience to draft an RfC that would focus on a few behavioral changes, for me (as you should do for any other person in an RfC). Your credibility would be greater if you were being conservative in your paraphrasing, rather than distorting User:Carrite's comment about my contempt for Busky's book. Have you bothered to read the pages I flagged as poor scholarship yet?

I find it humorous that you, who could not even be bothered to source properly the trivial bacon festival, are rapping my knuckles like a school marm about my acknowledgment that I had reused content ("canibalizing"), which I have acknowledged doing in many articles with edit-summaries. Of course, I can do better and perhaps I have slipped a few times.

Even if you have a respected Wikipedian involved with your RfC, I shall certainly have no time for it until December, as I noted before.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:58, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Kiefer, I have endorsed the basis of the RfC, so let's have no more of this "someone with greater ability" crap please. I suggest you get over there and respond to what's being raised - as I said previously, in my experience it never comes out well for the editor who attempts to ignore the issue. Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:29, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Elen, if I want your opinion, I shall ask for it.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz

Your contributions at RfC

Thank you for your participation in the discussion - I am hopeful that this can be brought to an amicable solution. I note that you have made a comment in the "Outside View" section - this section is for editors who are not a party to the dispute. For your convenience, I have moved your comments in their entirity into the response section here. You may wish to edit the header as it just says "Moved from Outside View section" at the moment. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 09:29, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Your movement was fine, although it does not preserve the soi disant, le soi c'est one autre, and a certain soup de jour qualities of the original.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 08:51, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Surely it's soup du jour :) :) Minestrone perhaps? --Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:50, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

That was an excellent guess! The cuisine is Roman. I am in a "secure, undisclosed location", but I do hear the Mediterranean peacefully loosening its rope of sands.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:31, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

"Lighten up, Francis"

On same team in general, but I advise you to chill out. Roll with the punches, just a little. And jab in spots, not always. Even for humor, it can be more effective. Like when Jerry advised George on not overplaying the jokes.

P.s. Yeah, the kids are kids. And trapped in Dunning Kruger (similar to Rumsfeldian unknown unknown). But give them a break. Broadcast at intervals, not continuuous wave.

P.s.s. Peace brah...and don't let the turkeys get you down.

P.s.s.s. That Ossfrob (or whatever his name is) is right about Shapley Lema-thereom. It is still too mathy. You CAN keep the essential content and make it better.

P.s.s.s.s. BEADWINDOW and all that... \

For the record, the IP editor who refuses a signature above is User:71.246.147.40. LadyofShalott 04:24, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Reading about the Dunning–Kruger effect and reviewing Bill Murray's Stripes were both enjoyable. I believe that the other allusion is to Donald Rumsfeld's or Dick Cheney's "secure undisclosed location" (often ridiculed on Harry Shearer's Le Show), where the Vice President secured himself after the 9/11 attacks.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:23, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

The Rumsfeldian reference was to this, I believe. 28bytes (talk) 00:15, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

That makes more sense! Thanks!  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 08:33, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Kiefer.Wolfowitz

The self imposed interaction ban was, IMHO, only on a discussion basis on your talk and mine I believe. I feel I can add value at the above. Are you in agreement that posting there does not contradict my interaction ban? If not then I will not comment there. Pedro :  Chat  22:09, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Pedro!

Thanks for asking. I shall try to email you privately.

Sincerely,

 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:30, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your email. After fully reading the RFC, I have decided that I'm unlikely to add value. Pedro :  Chat  22:20, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Pedro,

I thought you wrote a very classy request. I am sorry that I did not see your reply earlier, and acknowledge it immediately.

If you change your mind please feel free to comment at the RfC, or if you want to email me suggestions for improving my editing.

You have a lot more experience on WP than I do. If you change your mind about the interaction ban, which certainly did serve a purpose after some derailed conversations, then please email me or write here.

I appreciate your taking the time to read the RfC and to think about contributing. I shall remember your example of aiming for value-added comments.

Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Consider the alternatives

Negative reinforcement, like an auto-da-fé, helps learners distinguish between right and wrong action.).

I wrote this some months ago.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Infantilization

We agree that positive reinforcement is wonderful. However, negative reinforcement is also beneficial. Read Paul Meehl's Presidential Address to the American Psychological Association, "Why I do not attend case conferences":

Reward everything—gold and garbage—alike. The tradition of exaggerated tenderness in psychiatry and psychology reflects our “therapeutic attitude” and contrasts with that of scholars in fields like philosophy or law, where a dumb argument is called a dumb argument, and he who makes a dumb argument can expect to be slapped down by his peers. Nobody ever gives anybody negative reinforcement in a psychiatric case conference. (Try it once—you will be heard with horror and disbelief.) The most inane remark is received with joy and open arms as part of the groupthink process. Consequently the educational function, for either staff or students, is prevented from getting off the ground. Any psychologist should know that part of the process of training or educating is to administer differential reinforcement for good versus bad, effective versus ineffective, correct versus incorrect behaviors. If all behavior is rewarded by friendly attention and nobody is ever non-reinforced (let alone punished!) for talking foolishly, it is unlikely that significant educational growth will take place. (pp. 228-229)
...
The obvious educational question is, how does it happen that this bright, conscientious, well-motivated, social-service-oriented premed psychology major with a 3.80 average doesn’t know the most elementary things about psychotic depression, such as its diagnostic indicators, its statistical suicide risk, or the time phase in the natural history of the illness which presents the greatest risk of suicide? The answer, brethren, is very simple: Some of those who are “teaching” and “supervising” him either don’t know these things themselves or don’t think it is important for him to know them. This hapless student is at the educational mercy of a crew that is so unscholarly, antiscientific, “groupy-groupy,” and “touchy-feely” that they have almost no concern for facts, statistics, ... or the work of the intellect generally. (p. 280)

(Emboldening and links added)

Spare the rod and spoil the child,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:12, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Many, many years ago I attended case conferences during my psychology degree, and I was absolutely gob-smacked by the social worker pseudo-science bullshit on display even then. Malleus Fatuorum 22:57, 10 October 2011 (UTC)'

(ec) Very true. If all feedback is the same, there is no way of differentiating the useful (important) from useless (trivial or misleading). Manny may (talk) 23:02, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

p.s. I like your style! Manny may (talk) 23:06, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

:) (KW)

It's something that now seems to be deep in the American psyche. I attended an IT training course a few years ago led by an American, and within two hours of the week-long course I was writhing at her habitual "Thank you for that very interesting question" response to almost everything she was asked, no matter how stupid or inane. Whoever it was said that there are no stupid questions is an ass. Malleus Fatuorum 23:07, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I know parents of fairly bright kids who get really frustrated by the teachers of their children uncritically praising substandard work, on the grounds that their work is much better than that of many of the children in the class. The idea of equality, taken too far, does not challenge and stretch everyone according to their ability, and so becomes fundamentally unfair. Geometry guy 23:38, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

There was a fairly well-publicised case here in the UK of a football match between two junior teams being stopped at half-time because one team was losing 9–0, and it was considered improper that they should be asked to take the field again for the second half, and perhaps suffer further humiliation. Or perhaps fight back and win the game 10–9, we'll never know. But there's definitely an uncritical view that all efforts are equal, when they patently are not. There are winners and losers in life, and that's a lesson kids need to learn. Malleus Fatuorum 00:16, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I endorse E. D. Hirsch's The Schools We Need, and Why We Don't Have Them, which traces the disasters of American schools (particularly the systems of schools of eduction) to American romanticism, which viewed everybody as having a spark of divinity, like a narcissistic version of the Quaker religion (without the "leveling" or emphasis on good will and integrity).

After the publication of an English grammar of Sanskrit c. 1848, there was a fascination with Hinduism and Buddhism; probably German romanticism benefited from an awareness of Hindu and Buddhist influences on Christianity even earlier, and various types of pantheism and spiritualism. Not only romantic novelists but also scientists did research on spiritualism, "energy fields", "ghosts", etc. This BS animates much of American culture, from schools of education to Star Wars.

Another good book is by Robyn Dawes, House of Cards: Psychology and Therapy Built on Myth. Dawes emphasizes the importance of time on task for learning, especially homework, and criticizes the absurd and anti-scientific cult of "self esteem" in the U.S., particularly in "education". Dawes has been a professor at the magnificent Carnegie Mellon University.

His CMU colleagues Herb Simon, John R. Anderson, and a third have written criticisms of education-school BS, claiming to be based on "cognitive psychology". Wikipedia's own mathematics education has claimed that "research has shown" that short homework lessons are best, etc. Simon, Anderson, et alia have explained that many of these claims contradict the core findings of experimental psychology. (One of the disasters of Swedish social-democracy is that Alva Myrdal and her successors have imported the anti-intellectual U.S. system into a country that already suffered from conformity and leveling egalitarianism.)

I agree with the above expressed revulsion about the neglect of gifted children in many schools. It is nearly child abuse that some students never are challenged and so helped to learn time-management and study skills until they get to university.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 07:53, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Welund

Welund him be wurman wræces cunnade, anhydig eorlearfoþa dreag, hæfde him to gesiþþe sorge ond longaþ, wintercealde wræce; wean oft onfond, siþþan hine Niðhad onnede legde, swoncre seonobendeon syllan monn. Þæs ofereode,þisses swa mæg!

Welund tasted misery among snakes. The stout-hearted hero endured troubles had sorrow and longing as his companions cruelty cold as winter - he often found woe Once Nithad laid restraints on him, supple sinew-bonds on the better man. That went by; so can this.

The hamstrung smith Welund, portrayed on the Franks Casket.

Unwritten Wikipedia Policy

I have been having a deja vu experience all over again, but now I understand why: I recognize that I have been transgressing Jante Law, which is familiar to anybody who has lived for a half year in Sweden or Norway:

Jantelagen has ten rules:

1. Don't think you're anything special.
2. Don't think you're as good as us.
3. Don't think you're smarter than us.
4. Don't convince yourself that you're better than us.
5. Don't think you know more than us.
6. Don't think you are more important than us.
7. Don't think you are good at anything.
8. Don't laugh at us.
9. Don't think anyone cares about you.
10. Don't think you can teach us anything.

An eleventh rule is:

11. Don't think that there aren't a few things we know about you.

Those who transgress this unwritten 'law' are regarded with suspicion and some hostility, as it goes against communal desire in the town to preserve harmony, social stability and uniformity.

Jante Law has never been adopted officially in Nordic countries, although it is enforced daily with gusto. Why should Wikipedia be different?  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:09, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Give It to Me Baby

The goal of Request for Comments on Users (RFC/U), like the goal of every auto da fé, is reformation not punishment.

From WikiSpeak by Malleus et alia:

RfC n.

(editor conduct) A place to bring anyone you have a longstanding grudge against. There, they'll be subject to countless attacks by uninvolved editors (also known as "outside views") and generally be tortured until they agree to submit to your every whim. This is, of course, unless they are a popular editor, in which case the RfC will be dismissed as bad faith and you blocked indefinitely for some purportedly unrelated reason.

(content dispute) A place where editors who know absolutely nothing about the subject chime in in an attempt to destroy an article further.

Positive reinforcement

A beer for you

Thankyou for participating in my request for adminship. Now I've got lots of extra buttons to try and avoid pressing by mistake... Redrose64 (talk) 15:04, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi RedRose64 Redrose64!

It was my pleasure to vote for you! :)

Feel free to block me any time! ;)

Cheers,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:08, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Some falafel for you!

Thanks for making Wikipedia a better place to be. Enjoy! Pinkstrawberry02™ talk 15:54, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Please reply on Pinkstrawberry02's talk page. If for some reason you cannot, please leave them a {{talkback}} and reply on your own talk page. Also, don't forget to sign their guestbook. Thanks for your attention!

Thank you! Have you considered joining the administrator corps?  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:58, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank You...and You're Welcome!

Hey, thanks for the Baba Ghanoush! Try a new food every day - it was delicious! And you are certainly welcome for the falafel, I'm glad you enjoyed it. And no, I haven't. I've actually thought of myself as not good enough to do it - maybe I should start small. Thanks again! Pinkstrawberry02™ ^talk 18:13, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Я поздравляю вас!

("Я поздравляю вас!" is Russian for "I congratulate you".  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:25, 19 October 2011 (UTC))

		The Workers' Barnstar
		This user has shown great editing skills in improving articles related to Communism or Socialism.

• ...For your ongoing efforts to eliminate tendentious distortions from histories and biographies relating to 1970s American radicalism. Carrite (talk) 16:21, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Stakhanov on the cover of Time Magazine, 16 December 1935

Agitprop poster by Vladimir Mayakovsky: "Hurry to join shock brigades!"

Dear Brother Carrite!

Thank you very much!

My efforts would be so much easier if I had not reacted to the anti-anticommunism of previous versions with sometimes POV anti-anti-anticommunism. (However, the arch of the universe does incline towards NPOV justice, which is democratic and therefore anti-communist.)

Thank you for your work recently on Penn Kemble. One of the pleasures of writing about Kemble or Tom Kahn is writing about personalities, rather than cookie-cuts.

In solidarity,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:42, 18 October 2011 (UTC)