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User:Hrafn/ANI Response

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A statement from retirement[edit]

Given that I have not been allowed to retire in peace, but rather have:

  1. seen no let up to the amount of false information and false charges leveled against me;
  2. that without informing me, User:Catherineyronwode tacked her trumped up 'ANI Proposal' onto User:Firefly322's unrelated DOA AN/I complaint shortly before my retirement; and
  3. this complaint now seems to have turned into some sort of weird undead RFC/U (which has neither been properly certified with "Evidence of trying to resolve the dispute" and listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct, nor deleted),

I have decided to make this "statement from retirement" answering these false charges and setting the record straight.

I wish to make the following points:

  1. On the "War against New Thought and Christian biographies and books" Catherineyronwode
    1. Repeated information knowing it to be false
    2. Simply made up a bad-faith explanation for actions that were demonstrably made in good faith
    3. Fails to demonstrate a breach of wikipedia policy
  2. On the matter of "Incivility", both Catherineyronwode, and those who assisted her in compiling this list were themselves guilty of gross incivility against myself, compared to which my own borderline incivility pales by comparison.
  3. Her evidence is defective, in that it frequently lacks supporting difs, and/or relies of hearsay evidence.
Repeated information knowing it to be false
  1. On 7 September 2008, Catherineyronwode posted a (substantially similar version of) her complaint on Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-09-02 Relationship between religion and science.
  2. I posted both a general response (pointing out that among other defects, it was off-topic) and later a further response, pointing out that some of the claims in it (those relating to Affirmations and Affirmative Prayer) were demonstrably false.
  3. Catherineyronwode repeated one of these false claims in this comment on her user talk page.
  4. I responded, again pointing out that this information was false, and that I had already informed Catherineyronwode of this fact.
  5. Catherineyronwode responded by falsely claiming that I was "working from a couple-day-old version of the AN/I proposal page" on Affirmations (whereas this dif bracketing my comment clearly shows the information to be still present -- and was in fact never removed), claiming that "[t]his is the first time i have seen mention of" these errors, and that she would "correct" the errors (which she thereafter failed to do).
Simply made up a bad-faith explanation for actions that were demonstrably made in good faith

My involvement in 'New Thought' articles dates back to late January 2008. At the time, I was involved in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arsenicum album. Whilst keeping an eye on it, I browsed a number of other AfDs, and commented on a couple that caught my eye: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sith Empire & Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Religious Science Youth Movement. In researching the latter, I looked up the article on its parent organisation, Religious Science, and tagged it for lack of third-party sources] (actually the article was completely unsourced). This in turn led me to look at Category:New Thought churches, and a few hours later I tagged the likewise wholly-unsourced Church of Divine Science for failing to establish notability. Prior to coming across these articles via the AfD, I had never heard of New Thought, and I bear the viewpoint no particular animus.

It was however an area rife with articles that were neither sourced nor established notability (e.g. Association for Global New Thought, deleted as a result of a WP:PROD shortly after this category came to my attention) -- and thus in urgent need of cleanup.

I therefore started tagging, and eventually deleting unsourced material, and tagging and eventually redirecting articles that did not establish notability.

This is by no means the only part of wikipedia I have performed such work upon. I have also done so on my own 'home turf' of Creationism (consolidating a number of poorly-maintained articles into one on Creation geophysics), the woolier and more speculative reaches of cosmology, and most recently the Unification church (creating List of Unification Church affiliated organizations‎ to avoid further deletion of information on obscure UC-affiliated organisations).

Far from being solely a deleter of (unsourced) information on Christians and their creationist organisations, I have been a major contributor to George McCready Price, Harry Rimmer, J. Laurence Kulp, J. C. Massee, Geoscience Research Institute, Biblical Creation Society, Creation Science Movement, as well as a large number of other articles.

Catherineyronwode's dishonest and tendentious claim that I am on some sort of crusade to "destroy" information on "New Thought pages, Christian pages, and Creationism pages" are based upon nothing more than cherry-picking and misrepresentation of a small portion of my work on wikipedia.

Fails to demonstrate a breach of wikipedia policy

WP:V states: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true."

This clearly indicates that unverifiable information has no right to inclusion in wikipedia.

WP:V continues: "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation."

This places no restriction on the editor challenging the material to provide some reason why the information might be false -- the burden of evidence lies solely on the editor wishing to introduce or retain the information.

The problem with unverifiable information is not so much whether it is true or not, as that the reader (or any editor attempting maintenance) is not in a position to tell whether it is true or not. This problem is aggravated when, as on many New Thought articles, maintenance (through active watchlisting) appears to be negligible to non-existent.

Further, lack of reliable sources means that there is no basis on which to assess WP:WEIGHT for viewpoints and thus NPOV. In fact, it is a reasonable reading of WP:WEIGHT to consider it to be NPOV to omit entirely all information and viewpoints lacking reliable sources.

On the matter of "Incivility"

This issue has already been dealt with on Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts/archive50#User:Hrafn, I therefore see no point in repeating myself here, other than to draw readers attention to Madman2001's own gross incilivity documented there, Catherineyronwode's gross incivility (her first comment to me contained the clear implicit accusation that I was a "DESTROYER", "lazy" and a "bully" and repeated WP:BAITed me -- e.g. this edit summary), and that of their compatriot in compiling this list, Firefly322 who has accused me of being a "troll" and repeatedly accused me of being "evil".

Defective evidence

The following have as their basis hearsay -- statements (often inaccurate) made by others about my statements and actions, rather than difs of my statements and actions:

  • Incivility #8,
  • 'Examples':
    • Affirmative prayer
    • Affirmations
    • Divine Science
    • Charles Fillmore
    • Florence Scovel Shinn (plus my participation on its AfD)

Further, the following "examples" lack any difs whatsoever:

  • The Christian Virtuoso
  • Christian D. Larson
  • Charles F. Haanel (contains only snapshots)
  • The Master Key System
  • International New Thought Alliance (contains only snapshots)
  • Napoleon Hill
  • One mind
  • Malinda Cramer (only link documents that inattention to sourcing resulted in Madman2001 inserting false information into Divine Science)
  • The Science of Getting Rich
  • Phineas Quimby
  • Thomas Troward
  • Brother Jed (in which I will note, the 'defender' of the unsourced material ended up agreeing with me at Talk:Brother Jed#Deletions instead of citation-tags)
  • Daylight Origins Society
  • Metaphysical Club (New Thought)
Remaining 'examples'

As to the two remaining 'examples':

Conclusion

The substance of these accusations is that Catherineyronwode, WAS 4.250 and Madman2001 object to WP:V being applied to unsourced material they wish to preserve (though the latter is quite happy to demand verifiability of others), and that Firefly322 objects hysterically to the shortcomings of his/her edits being pointed out to him/her (witness his/her repeated AN/I posts on the subject). HrafnTalkStalk 05:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

[This is my personal user page, whose purpose is not the open discussion of statements I may make here. I have removed material posted here by others to WP:AN/I#Discussion, which is the appropriate forum for discussing my response to the claims that Catherineyronwode herself posted on that noticeboard. HrafnTalkStalk 11:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC) ]

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