Mr-Natural-Health made the statement that he is a Nazi; he said this to me on my User page because I am am Jewish. This is very hateful. He is even sending private hate mail to people he disagrees with. For instance:
====
To: "RK" Subject: RK, the Arse! From: "Mr-Natural-Health" johnhgohde@yahoo.com To: "RK" Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 19:24:06 +0000 (UTC)
You are an Arse! Just thought that you might want to know. :)
====
It is not just me; in a very short time many in the Wikipedia community have come to the conclusion that Mr-Natural-Health is a threat. Please see for yourself by reading the comments on his User page; every time someone tries to discuss things with him, he belittles and insults them, and then attacks them.
Mr-Natural-health has repeatedly stated that he plans on coming back to Wikipedia with other ISP under false names, and that he will not let anyone alter his edits. This is explicit admission of vandalism.
In any case, the edits he makes include gross falsehoods, distortions, fabrications, and paranoia. I am distubred by the way that Ec and a few others are defending this disturbed individual and his "work". I had planned to stay off Wiki-En for good, but in this case seeing this man defended, instead of banned, was too much.
A few contributors to Wiki-En forum seem devoid of common sense; it would be a shame if their lack of sense allowed Wikipedia to be damaged by allowing wackos free reign.
Robert (RK)
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From: Robert rkscience100@yahoo.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 15:56:03 -0800 (PST) To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Mr-Natural-Health says he is a Nazi. What can we make of this?
A few contributors to Wiki-En forum seem devoid of common sense; it would be a shame if their lack of sense allowed Wikipedia to be damaged by allowing wackos free reign.
Robert (RK)
Oh but we do, and you are exhibit one.
Fred
Fred, I don't think this kind of comment is very helpful. I think you can be more constructive than this.
Fred Bauder wrote:
From: Robert rkscience100@yahoo.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 15:56:03 -0800 (PST) To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Mr-Natural-Health says he is a Nazi. What can we make of this?
A few contributors to Wiki-En forum seem devoid of common sense; it would be a shame if their lack of sense allowed Wikipedia to be damaged by allowing wackos free reign.
Robert (RK)
Oh but we do, and you are exhibit one.
Fred
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I guess the point I am making is that while Mr. Natual Health is a newbie making the usual mistakes those who are attacking him are experienced users using tried and true provocative techniques and are much more a matter for serious concern.
Fred
From: Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 04:33:07 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Mr-Natural-Health says he is a Nazi. What can we make of this?
Fred, I don't think this kind of comment is very helpful. I think you can be more constructive than this.
Fred Bauder wrote:
From: Robert rkscience100@yahoo.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 15:56:03 -0800 (PST) To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Mr-Natural-Health says he is a Nazi. What can we make of this?
A few contributors to Wiki-En forum seem devoid of common sense; it would be a shame if their lack of sense allowed Wikipedia to be damaged by allowing wackos free reign.
Robert (RK)
Oh but we do, and you are exhibit one.
Fred
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Robert wrote:
Mr-Natural-Health made the statement that he is a Nazi; he said this to me on my User page because I am am Jewish. This is very hateful. He is even sending private hate mail to people he disagrees with. For instance: ==== To: "RK" Subject: RK, the Arse! From: "Mr-Natural-Health" johnhgohde@yahoo.com To: "RK" Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 19:24:06 +0000 (UTC)
You are an Arse! Just thought that you might want to know. :) ==== It is not just me; in a very short time many in the Wikipedia community have come to the conclusion that Mr-Natural-Health is a threat. Please see for yourself by reading the comments on his User page; every time someone tries to discuss things with him, he belittles and insults them, and then attacks them.
These kinds of statements are clearly a breach of etiquette, and have no relationship to the medical issues that form the substantive part of the debate. At the same time I can understand that he is in a situation where he feels beset by a pack of dogs, and that can be an irrational driving force to his words. The reaction to his writing has been combattive from the beginning, with no attempt whatsoever to find a common ground. Several of his opponents start from the closed-minded presumption that he is absolutely wrong.
Mr-Natural-health has repeatedly stated that he plans on coming back to Wikipedia with other ISP under false names, and that he will not let anyone alter his edits. This is explicit admission of vandalism.
The fact is that he has not been banned. Exploring that avenue is pure speculation, even if he does make that threat.
In any case, the edits he makes include gross falsehoods, distortions, fabrications, and paranoia. I am distubred by the way that Ec and a few others are defending this disturbed individual and his "work". I had planned to stay off Wiki-En for good, but in this case seeing this man defended, instead of banned, was too much.
I make no apologies for defending his work. Just because a handful of us are defending a minority position should not be cause for being disturbed. You have elsewhere objected to what you called ad hominem arguments, and you are right to complain when MrNH calls your sanity into question, or calls himself a Nazi as a means of attacking your Jewishness by innuendo. But what are "gross falsehoods, distortions, fabrications, and paranoia" but ad hominem arguments. Setting up peer-reviewed double-blind experiments as the only standard for accepting medical practices is far too rigid an outlook on medicine. Other things do work, though imperfectly documented.Giving credence to alternative medicine should not be seen as supporting quackery. Outright fraud does exist, but the defrauders are a ninority that get an overblown share of the publicity. Most alternative practitioners like most mainstream doctors ply their trade with complete honesty and are consistent with their own beliefs
A few contributors to Wiki-En forum seem devoid of common sense; it would be a shame if their lack of sense allowed Wikipedia to be damaged by allowing wackos free reign.
Isn't "wacko" also an ad hominem term?
Ec
There are three issues people have trouble separating: MNH's behavior, people's dogmatic arguments over "alternative medicine" and "scientism", and the content of the articles about "alternative medicine".
Item 1: MNH. I think MNH is rude, insulting, insistent on pushing bias, making statements (coming back under other names and ISPs, for one) that are the clear mark of a troll and vandal, and generally making it obvious he should be banned. Certainly some people's actions have provoked him, but this is no excuse for his conduct. This is the only item that should have been at issue on the list... and I think it rather clear.
Item 2: "Alternative medicine" and "scientism". I tend to only use these words in quotes, as they tend to both be ill-defined terms used to push a particular side's point of view. "Alternative medicine": I agree with snoyes's comment that if something is accepted and proven to have some degree of efficacy, it is by definition no longer alternative; also, there is the "alternative to what" issue. "Western medicine" is an equally loaded and ill-defined term. As a point of reference, I live in the US, and have a chronic illness (fibromyalgia) that the majority of doctors I've seen have denied the very existence of, then refused to believe I had, and the rare few that actually deal with it have been unable to successfully treat (though it's better than it used to be). A large portion of what improvement I have had has come via chiropractic treatment, which was once called "alternative", and by some still is. (I'm not talking about "straight chiropractic", the now-uncommon belief that subluxation is the cause of all ills, here.) I continue to explore a great many other measures, few of which are accepted as valid by the majority of American MDs I know of (but this does not make them unscientific). However, I can't stand charlatans, which many of today's herbmongers (the vast majority of "Dietary supplements" sold in drugstores and elsewhere, the effects of what they're suppoded to be aside, don't even contain what they claim to. Few are more than placebos. Such is the effect of an unregulated industry.) and suchlike are. I do consider myself a scientist, but that doesn't mean what many people seem to think it does... which is my next point: "Scientism": I constantly see this term used as a pejorative by those who hold beliefs they beleive to be incompatible with science. The thing is, whenever they describe it, they describe a mindset completely unrelated to science. I think none of this discussion truly belongs here (and apologize for going on as I just have, but felt it necessary), and most of it wouldn't happen at all if people (on both sides) stopped to look at what science actually is... "sides" are much of the problem.
Item 3: article content. I think the articles on "alternative medicine" and such should be expanded and have more information on other views... but progress is being made, and I expect that like all of Wikipedia's articles, they will continue to improve over time. Further discussion on this topic also doesn't belong on the list, but on the relevant talk pages.
-- Jake
From: "Jake Nelson" jnelson@soncom.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 04:29:42 -0600 To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Mr-Natural-Health
There are three issues people have trouble separating: MNH's behavior, people's dogmatic arguments over "alternative medicine" and "scientism", and the content of the articles about "alternative medicine".
Item 1: MNH. I think MNH is rude, insulting, insistent on pushing bias, making statements (coming back under other names and ISPs, for one) that are the clear mark of a troll and vandal, and generally making it obvious he should be banned. Certainly some people's actions have provoked him, but this is no excuse for his conduct. This is the only item that should have been at issue on the list... and I think it rather clear.
Because of the repeated attacks that have been made on him it is not at all clear he should be banned. The virulent attacks and their effects muddy the situation.
Item 2: "Alternative medicine" and "scientism". I tend to only use these words in quotes, as they tend to both be ill-defined terms used to push a particular side's point of view. "Alternative medicine": I agree with snoyes's comment that if something is accepted and proven to have some degree of efficacy, it is by definition no longer alternative; also, there is the "alternative to what" issue.
There is a relatively clear meaning as to what alternative medicine is and it includes the many methods such as acupucture, chiropractic (in all its forms) herbal medicine, color therapy etc. Some of these are accepted and used by medical doctors, some scoffed at but althernative medicine is an umbrella term that includes them all. Their status in terms of reasearch varies, sometimes by country, herbs, for example, are tested much more in Germany than elsewhere.
"Western medicine" is an equally loaded and ill-defined term.
What is meant by conventional medicine is simply what you get when you go to a typical doctor, but more and more frequently that may include alternative medicine.
As a point of reference, I live in the US, and have a chronic illness (fibromyalgia) that the majority of doctors I've seen have denied the very existence of, then refused to believe I had, and the rare few that actually deal with it have been unable to successfully treat (though it's better than it used to be). A large portion of what improvement I have had has come via chiropractic treatment, which was once called "alternative", and by some still is. (I'm not talking about "straight chiropractic", the now-uncommon belief that subluxation is the cause of all ills, here.) I continue to explore a great many other measures, few of which are accepted as valid by the majority of American MDs I know of (but this does not make them unscientific).
However, I can't stand charlatans, which many of today's herbmongers (the vast majority of "Dietary supplements" sold in drugstores and elsewhere, the effects of what they're suppoded to be aside, don't even contain what they claim to. Few are more than placebos. Such is the effect of an unregulated industry.) and suchlike are. I do consider myself a scientist, but that doesn't mean what many people seem to think it does... which is my next point:
"Scientism": I constantly see this term used as a pejorative by those who hold beliefs they beleive to be incompatible with science. The thing is, whenever they describe it, they describe a mindset completely unrelated to science.
Anyone who has been in an edit war with RK knows what scientism is. For our purposes it can be decribed operationaly as what he (and apparently a few others) does.
I think none of this discussion truly belongs here (and apologize for going on as I just have, but felt it necessary), and most of it wouldn't happen at all if people (on both sides) stopped to look at what science actually is... "sides" are much of the problem.
No. It belongs here, on the list the purpose of which is to discuss such issues.
Item 3: article content. I think the articles on "alternative medicine" and such should be expanded and have more information on other views... but progress is being made, and I expect that like all of Wikipedia's articles, they will continue to improve over time. Further discussion on this topic also doesn't belong on the list, but on the relevant talk pages.
-- Jake
Discussion belongs in both places. The notion that an article on one thing should have a lot of information about another thing fails. An article on alternative medicine is not an appropriate vehicle for a long discourse on conventional treatment. A link will do.
Fred
Fred Bauder wrote:
Item 1: MNH. I think MNH is rude, insulting, insistent on pushing bias, making statements (coming back under other names and ISPs, for one) that are the clear mark of a troll and vandal, and generally making it obvious he should be banned. Certainly some people's actions have provoked him, but this is no excuse for his conduct. This is the only item that should have been at issue on the list... and I think it rather clear.
Because of the repeated attacks that have been made on him it is not at all clear he should be banned. The virulent attacks and their effects muddy the situation.
I agree with both of these comments, oddly. It's always unfortunate to have to ban someone, so I think certainly "forgive and forget" is the best option, regardless of past behavior, if MNH begins henceforth to act in a reasonable manner. However, several people appear to have tried to contact him both by talk-page and email, and he does not appear to have responded in a reasonable manner. If there's a chance he's going to "shape up", so to speak, then I think that's certainly the best option, but obviously we can't sit around forever waiting for that to happen either. Has anyone here actually tried to contact him via email and gotten a response?
-Mark
From: Delirium delirium@rufus.d2g.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2003 03:08:37 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Mr-Natural-Health
Has anyone here actually tried to contact him via email and gotten a response?
email this user works for him and he does respond (at least to friendly inquiries).
Fred
On Monday 08 December 2003 06:00, Fred Bauder wrote:
There is a relatively clear meaning as to what alternative medicine is and it includes the many methods such as acupucture, chiropractic (in all its forms) herbal medicine, color therapy etc. Some of these are accepted and used by medical doctors, some scoffed at but althernative medicine is an umbrella term that includes them all. Their status in terms of reasearch varies, sometimes by country, herbs, for example, are tested much more in Germany than elsewhere.
Maybe you wouldn't mind sharing that "clear meaning" with us. Simply listing things that are considered alternative medicine does not constitute the definition of the term.
"Western medicine" is an equally loaded and ill-defined term.
What is meant by conventional medicine is simply what you get when you go to a typical doctor, but more and more frequently that may include alternative medicine.
So if I understand your logic correctly, one gets conventional medicine when one goes to a typical doctor. But one can also increasingly get alternative medicine there. So are conventional and alternative medicine one and the same thing? At what point of adoption does an alternative become conventional? Or is it even usefull to talk in terms of conventionality when discussing medicine? (I submit that it isn't.) Maybe this illustrates that there does perhaps not exist a clear meaning for the term "alternative medicine"?
Best, Sascha Noyes
From: Sascha Noyes sascha@pantropy.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 11:28:47 -0500 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Mr-Natural-Health
On Monday 08 December 2003 06:00, Fred Bauder wrote:
There is a relatively clear meaning as to what alternative medicine is and it includes the many methods such as acupucture, chiropractic (in all its forms) herbal medicine, color therapy etc. Some of these are accepted and used by medical doctors, some scoffed at but alternative medicine is an umbrella term that includes them all. Their status in terms of reasearch varies, sometimes by country, herbs, for example, are tested much more in Germany than elsewhere.
Maybe you wouldn't mind sharing that "clear meaning" with us. Simply listing things that are considered alternative medicine does not constitute the definition of the term.
Those who regularly use the term use it to mean the options (alternatives) other than going to an MD.
"Western medicine" is an equally loaded and ill-defined term.
What is meant by conventional medicine is simply what you get when you go to a typical doctor, but more and more frequently that may include alternative medicine.
So if I understand your logic correctly, one gets conventional medicine when one goes to a typical doctor. But one can also increasingly get alternative medicine there. So are conventional and alternative medicine one and the same thing? At what point of adoption does an alternative become conventional? Or is it even usefull to talk in terms of conventionality when discussing medicine? (I submit that it isn't.) Maybe this illustrates that there does perhaps not exist a clear meaning for the term "alternative medicine"?
Best, Sascha Noyes
We had an MD here who also practiced Acupuncture (and he was quite a quack about it too--often using it in dubious ways). That is an example of such a use. One thing about medical doctor licensing: They are permitted to use any method which in their judgement might be effective, for example placebos may legitimately be prescribed in appropriate cases by a medical doctor, or indeed any althernative method he or she might feel approriate, whether or not there is any scientific proof of their effectiveness.
I don't think that confuses the issue or the definitions of conventional versus alternative medicine. It just shows that there is an absence of a sharp boundary. Conventional practice of pills and surgery is still distinguishable from a more holistic approach whether it is a medical doctor or an alternative practicioner delivering the service.
Fre
Sorry to meddle, but we may be forgetting that what *people* expect from a doctor is not *science* ''stricto sense'' but healing...
But this may start a hotter debate?
My 2c.
Pedro
Pedro Fortuny wrote:
Sorry to meddle, but we may be forgetting that what *people* expect from a doctor is not *science* ''stricto sense'' but healing...
Not to dictate what people should be discussing, but I think we may be entering into a philosophical debate the scope of which is somewhat wider than this mailing list ought to accomodate. There's entire books written on the proper relationship between 'medicine', 'healing', and so on!
-Mark
Sorry to meddle, but we may be forgetting that what *people* expect from a doctor is not *science* ''stricto sense'' but healing...
Not to dictate what people should be discussing, but I think we may be entering into a philosophical debate the scope of which is somewhat wider than this mailing list ought to accomodate. There's entire books written on the proper relationship between 'medicine', 'healing', and so on!
Yes, you are quite right...
Pedro.
Pedro Fortuny wrote:
Sorry to meddle, but we may be forgetting that what *people* expect from a doctor is not *science* ''stricto sense'' but healing...
But this may start a hotter debate?
My 2c.
You're right. There's even one country country which I am not naming where they take doctors to court for millions when they aren't healed. :-)
Ec