Stochastikos

crop circles & WP:BRD

My reversion of your edit was not WP:VANDALISM and I note that 2 other editors have commented on your edits on this page, although you've deleted them. See WP:BRD - you don't have consensus, so time to discuss your edits, not replace them. Dougweller (talk) 09:44, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Dougweller. Please stop editing the page and ignoring the talk page consensus. And please take the time to read over the relevant policies. Wikipedia is collabrative, and functions best when all editors work togther. Andrewaskew (talk) 04:57, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes this would have indeed been the appropriate place to make a comment like that.
But now you're doing it redundantly after Consensus_and_editing
to color my talk page. Anyone that follows that link will realize you're overreacting. Stochastikos (talk) 05:47, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Um, no, it was not my purpose to "color (sic)" your talk page. Not everything on a Wikipedia talk page is some sort of rhetorical move. This is part of the general assumption of WP:GOODFAITH. Wikis (under ideal circumstances) proceed a little differently from most sites in that arguments are not resolved by rhetorical tricks and winning, but by reference to policy and compromise. When other editors point to policy, they are not trying to argue you down, they are trying to help you understand Wikipedia policies.

Incidentally, it is not really possible to colour another user's talk page in the way you are implying. This falls within your user space, so you are well within your rights to archive or simply delete any material on here. The talk page is one of the ways of other editors addressing you directly.

As to why I addressed you here and directed you to the crop circle talk page, that was because you seemed to be ignoring the attempts of editors on the talk page to show what was wrong with your proposed edits. Everyone knows (or hopes) that you have the best interest of Wikipedia at heart, we simply feel you are going about this objective in a misguided fashion. For my own part, I think you have the potential to become a very good editor, but you need to focus more on policy and consensus-building. Best of luck to you. --Andrewaskew (talk) 02:39, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Warning

Wikipedia has a long history of people advancing crank and pseudoscientific views, such as the paranormal explanations of crop circles advanced by so-called "cereologists". Such debates tend to be circular; as soon as one crank advocate is dealt with, another comes along. Tempers fray. For this reason there is by now a long standing principle that crank advocacy is grounds for a topic ban from the disputed topic.

See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Paranormal, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science. Note that in every case the reality-based community won by every possible measure. Wikipedia's tolerance for fringe nonsense portrayed as fact is low and not increasing. there are other sites where one can write from the "cereologist" perspective, but Wikipedia discusses this perspective only in the context of an interesting but plainly misguided view, and will continue to do so until there is some actual concrete evidence of paranormal origin. That is the harsh reality. And actually we don't think it's harsh, it doesn't bother us a bit.

Having reviewed your edits and comments, you have paced yourself squarely in the ambit of this consensus. Your egregious use of {{citation needed}} tags on content which is properly sourced but merely does not say what you would like it to say, for example, and your false assertion that a documented scientific consensus is an appeal to anonymous authority, rather than (as it actually is) a technical term to describe the consensus view among the relevant professional scientific community.

This is by way of a warning. If you carry on as you are, you will end up topic banned or banned altogether. Wikipedia's content reflects the truth, not The Truth™. Lighten up, keep to the talk page until you have achieved consensus for your proposed changes, and if the consensus is against you then learn to live with it. Guy (Help!) 20:58, 24 December 2012 (UTC)