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How many articles have been truncated in the Jag cleanup effort?

Who is involved in the effort? Are the efforts being coordinated? Do any of the truncations involve page moves and recreations of stubs under the old article names, so as to effectively delete the history along with the article? Aquib ( talk) 13:37, 7 March 2011 (UTC) reply

I do not know, but I am pretty confident there is no coordination other than this page. As you can see, not much has happened in recent weeks, and I suspect that is the case as far as truncations are concerned. I don't have a list of the truncated pages, but I think you and I have commented on the talk pages of articles where significant truncation has occurred—I'm not aware of any other significant cutting. The page moves you mention were done by an over-enthusiastic editor, and I think the situation has now been cleaned up, and is unlikely to be repeated. The deletion-of-history incident was a one-off mistake (you are probably aware that Wikipedia's copyright procedures mandate that page histories be retained, or some other arrangement made to attribute contributions, if content from a page is used anywhere). There are 7800 articles involved so progress will be glacial (it's likely that many of the 7800 will be free of any problem, but they are listed on the cleanup pages as needing a check). Johnuniq ( talk) 23:00, 7 March 2011 (UTC) reply
Thank you, John. That is reassuring news to me, and I am not aware of any practical way to find out other than to ask. It would be helpful if the other people participating in this process would step forward as well, in the interest of disclosure and transparency. - Aquib ( talk) 00:30, 8 March 2011 (UTC) reply
It might be of some value if I were to create a page which has nothing but a list of all the article titles (all titles mentioned on the cleanup pages, but just the titles and in alphabetical order—7800 linked titles). Looking at such a page, one could click "Related changes" in the toolbox in the sidebar to see recent changes to all listed articles (up to last 30 days). As an example, try that at WT:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Cleanup1. That list includes my signature, so changes at my talk page are included in the related changes, although the "Namespace" can be adjusted to "(Article)" to avoid signatures (but then it misses article talk pages). Any thoughts? Johnuniq ( talk) 01:10, 8 March 2011 (UTC) reply
It would be of immense value. Thank you. - Aquib ( talk) 02:36, 8 March 2011 (UTC) reply
I think I've done that correctly. See WT:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Cleanup#Recent changes. I made two lists ("main" and "other") because it was apparent that a significant number of pages are not related to the issue, and changes on some of those pages may be quite frequent and of little interest here. If warranted, such items can be moved from the "main" list to the "other" list to reduce noise for the main articles. Johnuniq ( talk) 09:29, 8 March 2011 (UTC) reply
Hmmm, now that the list exists and I can try it, it is clear that its value is pretty dubious because there are too many changes: 5000 changes only goes back four days. Johnuniq ( talk) 09:37, 8 March 2011 (UTC) reply
Thank you for trying, I suppose it's just too many articles. - Aquib ( talk) 13:50, 8 March 2011 (UTC) reply
Islamic metaphysics is mia, I will ask an admin if they can retrieve the article. - Aquib ( talk) 04:30, 9 March 2011 (UTC) reply
To whom it may concern, Informational note: this is to let you know that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Regards, - Aquib ( talk) 04:38, 9 March 2011 (UTC) reply
Islamic metaphysics is accounted for, it was blanked and redirected but the history is intact. For some reason, it had not occurred to me all these redirects out here in our mainspace are potentially sitting on submerged articles. Like buoys hovering over shipwrecks. - Aquib ( talk) 13:36, 9 March 2011 (UTC) reply
"Shipwrecks"... nice analogy. — Ruud 04:44, 14 March 2011 (UTC) reply
Of course the questions are how they ended up on the bottom and whether they can be raised again. Aquib ( talk) 05:16, 14 March 2011 (UTC) reply

A better solution to cleaning up severely compromised articles

  1. Select two or three first-class academic texts representing different perspectives on the subject.
  2. Replace all Jags citations with citations from the selected references. If the assertion cannot be substantiated from these sources, remove it from the article.

Aquib ( talk) 06:03, 9 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Great idea. When do you expect to finish the task? — Ruud 17:23, 9 March 2011 (UTC) reply
Well I would like to run a proof of concept to work out the bugs. I have a little spare time next week. I could try it out on one of our problem children. Then once I have you trained you'll be all set : )
If this is workable, and it looks like it is, then we need to talk about renegotiating this RFC/U into a new agreement with some different rules of engagement.
I would probably want to try this remediation approach on a small article first. Which is a good candidate? And what are some top quality sources that cover the topic thoroughly?
Aquib ( talk) 00:33, 10 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Another wonderful example

I've just removed another wonderful piece of Jaggedese, see [1]. Actually, I didn't even check it was J, I suppose I ought to... yep, it was Jagged: [2] William M. Connolley ( talk) 19:09, 10 March 2011 (UTC) reply

That's really dreadful, it looks like deliberate sneaky vandalism of the encyclopaedia to me. I'll try and remind myself to always carefully inspect anything they do. 86.9.212.44 ( talk) 12:28, 13 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Invitation to comment on RFC regarding the stubbing (deletion) of the Mathematics in medieval Islam article

You are invited to comment on the content dispute regarding the stubbing of the Mathematics in medieval Islam article Thank You - Aquib ( talk) 04:18, 14 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Appealing this RFC/U to the Arbitration Committee

I intend to prepare an appeal to the Arbitration Committee regarding the need for limits and oversight of the Jagged 85 cleanup. In particular, I remain concerned about these page stubbings, redirects and moves. The question of overzealous or careless cleanup edits may come up as well.

As a general approach, I plan to demonstrate the collateral damage occurring as a result of changes in circumstances, and consequently the approach to cleanup, over the period of time since the Jag RFC/U was initiated. Diffs will be presented depicting a variety of unpleasant situations we have encountered, but not for the purpose of singling out individuals for further attention.

I, for one, have no appetite for further conflict. I seek a reasonable solution that protects the valid content and the encyclopedia.

Aquib ( talk) 00:08, 18 March 2011 (UTC) reply

The request has been filed here - Aquib ( talk) 06:44, 21 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Declined [3] William M. Connolley ( talk) 20:33, 31 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Proposed parallel RfC to deal with issues stemming from the Jagged 85 cleanup (i.e. a successor RfC to this RfC)

This is an edited version of a proposal I vetted on User talk:Pjoef's talk page in response to an edit dispute wherein Pjoef tried to clean up and restore the Islamic math article:

Aquib, Thanks. Not to say an RFC/U isn't needed, but [in parallel to, or as part of your ArbCom request] if we bring in the various WikiProjects associated with the pages, and request a new RfC to deal with the following questions, then we may be able to deal with the issue. Revisit the Jagged 85 issue through an article-centric RfC (I assume that's the correct forum for seeking consensus on action over multiple pages) addressing all the issues that have come up post-"Jagged 85 cleanup", and invite the various WikiProjects to participate. This would especially help dig up persons with additional subject matter expertise to comment on the underlying issue, which is/was the purpose of this cleanup. If that fails to get off the ground or persons insist that the old Jagged 85 thread (here) is the only proper forum for the issue, then [that's what the ArbCom request is for]. But, pjoef and I are unfamiliar with the ins and outs of an RfC, which makes one about an article instead of a person easier to start. Also, no one has actually started a (depersonalized) RfC about the issue as a whole:

  • Is this a dispute about verifiability, or is it a disputed topic, i.e. a debate about historical revisionism and undue weight inherent in the subject matter? For instance, the official verdict underpinning the Jagged85 cleanup begins: many edits involve the undue promotion of Islamic and other non-European scholarship and achievements...
  • Note that an RfC devoted to cleanup of all edits by a specific user is not the proper forum for fixing the overall issues surrounding the Islamic scholarship articles specifically, as a topical matter; because i. Jagged edits aren't necessarily restricted to those specific articles, that have been stubbed; ii. the accuracy of specific "Jagged edits" is contested by various editors -- Jagged doesn't own those diffs, and neither do the people contesting them, it only matters if useful and factual info can be restored; and iii. to deal with overzealous edits in the wake of the Jagged cleanup (e.g. the user who deleted Islamic metaphysics outright "per" this RfC) so a new RfC is needed to deal with those articles specifically.
  • Similarly, user User:Pjoef who tried to clean up one of the articles writes, "[the article which was deleted] is mostly well-sourced, comprehensible and reasonably clear, and follows the NPOV policy, with only minor exceptions. It's the subject (History of mathematics) that is controversial. About the Jagged85 "cleanup", I don't know... What I know is that a good article has been stubbed and now readers can not enjoy, usufruct and make use of the content of the page" ~~( User:Pjoef) (quoted)
  • The cleanup in this RfC can continue using those tags, or we can retire this RfC since it is based on a user dispute. (Depending on how the new RfC is resolved -- this RfC could still be needed to deal with tagging and verifying the Jagged edits, whereas the new RfC is about restoring deleted content and making sure a whole section of Wikipedia isn't stubbed because of it.) Another reason a new successor RfC dealing specifically with the Islamic scholarship pages and canvassing the affected WikiProjects (Middle Ages, Islam, History of Science, etc.) would move things along.
  • If the latter, one possible solution would be to put all disputed claims (if the dispute is essentially an academic dispute over revisionism and presentism and sources can be found for both sides) in a separate section in each page labeled "Claims for additional discoveries by Islamic scholars" wherein a caveat can be clearly stated with the opposing sources.
  • Additionally, the new RfC would have the scope to consider page action to standardize the naming of all these pages so they can actually be found. On either the Science or Math in medieval Islam talk pages, I made a proposal which I would wish to incorporate into the new RfC (severally from the rest), namely to rename the key pages at issue, most or all of which are affected by the Jagged RfC, Medieval Islamic X: (and/or) Classical Islamic X)
This has the added benefit of being one of the few naming conventions which all sides could agree on (Ruud, one of the "curators" of the affected pages, suggested it; the person who came in opposed the page on general principle because they thought it was a "religious science" page liked it; and the persons concerned about the recent stubbing) could tentatively support when the issue was repeatedly brought up on one of the talk pages. It also meets WP:MOS for conciseness and clarity. Only reason it hasn't been tried was because the old, old discussion drifted off into the "Arab vs. Islamic as an adjective" issue, which since got resolved in favor of "Islamic".

Sincerely, Yclept:Berr ( talk) 13:26, 18 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Oh Yeah... How do I start one? Yclept:Berr ( talk) 13:32, 18 March 2011 (UTC) reply

We've had quite a few RFC's recently, most obviously on Talk:Mathematics in medieval Islam. It isn't clear that another one will help much. Also, it isn't quite clear what the above is: you write This is an edited version of a proposal I vetted on User talk:Pjoef's talk page - that sounds like someone else, talking about you. Did you write the text above? If What I know is that a good article has been stubbed is talking about Mathematics in medieval Islam then I hope you do at least realise that the assertion that the pre-stub article was "good" is at best controversial. Asserting as fact that the article is good is a very partisan viewpoint William M. Connolley ( talk) 14:35, 18 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Pjoef only wrote the part in quotes (quoted without permission) and I only quoted him in the text of this proposal here, which is a greatly expanded from a set of three bullet points you probably saw me rattle off on Pjoef's talk page. (I then cc'ed him a copy of the full proposal, however, since I quoted him, so you'll find it there). I'll remove Pjoef's "tag" to make it clear that I'm quoting him.
As for the rationale, this is about achieving parity regarding these related (series of) articles on Classical Islamic scholarship, which is a major field of study (albeit obscure to us Anglophones of course), some of which have been deleted outright. And at the very least it's about standardizing a) the name conventions and b) the way the pages are being treated (e.g. stubbing vs. marking verification failure line by line, since there seems to be disagreement on which actual claims Jagged made that are dishonest or merely poorly phrased using peacock terminology, not to mention the whole rest of the articles simply because Jagged salted his edits in it, per WP:BATHWATER.)
Also note that the purpose of the new RfC would be to address issues that this RfC, which is a negotiated settlement of an RfC/U addressing the edits of a specific user, cannot. And that this RfC would proceed unharmed by the new one and hopefully be sped to completion by whatever consensus the new RfC would be able to come up with.
Alternatively, it is worth asking whether, given the number of pages involved (but I want to limit it to the main articles on Classical Islamic scholarship, not every preexisting stub Jagged edited) this should be a WP:Village pump proposal. I am tempted to say RfC first, then list village pump as a possible action to be taken.
Standardizing the names of the main pages on the subject is one outcome I think most people would be happy with a new RfC, e.g. "Medieval Islamic X" which a suggestion Ruud made years ago (I'm new to this so of course I read the archives and this caught my eye) in response to the continual complaints about "Islamic X not being a valid field of study"...
...which, I think when you get down to it, is probably a misconception many people have about the purpose of these articles which factors in to the broad hostility between various groups of editors (Islamicists, Historians of Science, Orientalists, European history buffs, Revisionist history buffs, and bystanders like myself)
Also note that the Math and Science articles seem to be roughly parallel in the problems and issues involved, another reason not to confine it to the Ruud/Pjoef thing which is not what this is about. That's what Aquib's ArbCom request is about. This request for a new RfC is about taking a step back and looking at a group of specific pages, irrespective of Jagged 85. Sincerely Yclept:Berr ( talk) 15:43, 18 March 2011 (UTC) reply
I think I confused you with Pj. Never mind that bit. I don't think the names issue is all that contentious. Do you feel it is particularly important or urgent? Now doesn't seem to be a great time to do it, while we have issues of actual content unsettled.
marking verification failure line by line - this is a non-starter.
'the Ruud/Pjoef thing which is... what Aquib's ArbCom request is about - are you sure? There is no way the R/Pj interaction rises even close to arbcomm level.
But more importantly: this is about achieving parity regarding these - parity with what?
William M. Connolley ( talk) 16:01, 18 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Time to do a real clean-up – now!

With the issue brought to the fore once again, I believe we should use the golden opportunity to get things finally done which should have been done last year. Let us stub all those articles heavily edited by Jagged85 which are beyond repair. Namely delete the contents of all long-term tagged articles where Jagged has been the main contributor. The recent example of Mathematics in medieval Islam can serve us as a model. All users from the arbitration are going to be notified. Let us do this – now. Regards Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 11:32, 21 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Are you sure this is a wise thing to do (or even to call for) right now? It seems like setting a fire next to a Gun Powder Keg. I strongly suggest to wait at least until the arbitration request has either blown over, or has otherwise run its due course.  -- Lambiam 11:54, 21 March 2011 (UTC) reply
Yes, I am sure this is a wise thing. There have been tens of thousands unsuspecting readers since last year who are given demonstrably false and biased information over a wide range of articles, and we need to do something about this now. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 12:14, 21 March 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Agree - The most prudent and responsible action is to stub the tainted articles and rebuild them with accurate text drawn from reliable sources. Doc Tropics 14:21, 21 March 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Disagree - Though I acknowledge the seriousness and scope of the problem, I think the article-by-article dif checking established in Wikipedia:Jagged_85_cleanup is an adequate and systematic way of dealing with this problem. Those articles that have already been cleared through this process should not be stubbed. As long as all the articles have various tags at the top of the article 'unverified claims', etc, that should be enough to make readers aware that there could be issues with the content. Dialectric ( talk) 14:25, 21 March 2011 (UTC) reply
Comment: I am afraid it isn't enough. List of inventions in medieval Islam, for example, was translated as recently as January 2011 into the French version Inventions musulmanes du Moyen Âge despite the multiple tags on top. If we don't want to spread any more POV material beyond the English WP and out of control, we need to act quick and decisively. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 17:33, 21 March 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Don't rush First of all, I agree that we should wait at least a few days, until the arbitration request has been declined. After that we can have a centralized discussion assessing for each of the major problematic articles ( Psychology in medieval Islam, Science in medieval Islam, Inventions in medieval Islam, Timeline of science and engineering in the Islamic world, Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam, ...) individually what the current state is and what the best course of action would be. For the minor articles I would suggest requesting a bot operator to tag them with {{ Jagged 85 cleanup}} to draw some more attention. — Ruud 15:26, 21 March 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Not now It is polite and prudent to wait until the ArbCom situation is clarified. Yesterday I would have agreed with Ruud's above assessment "until the arbitration request has been declined", but now I see a glimmer of a possibility that some form of case may be accepted. I'm guessing that because the arbs who have not encountered the case can't make any sense of the amazing claims (that an editor who is not under sanction caused all that trouble), so they may want to undertake some sort of investigation. At any rate, it would be very inappropriate to take further action while a case is under consideration. Johnuniq ( talk) 09:50, 22 March 2011 (UTC) reply
I agree with Johnuniq. Macdonald-ross ( talk) 12:08, 22 March 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Comment - Although I Agreed with the intent to clean up the mess we've been left with, waiting for ArbCom to process the situation is certainly appropriate. Also, Ruud's suggestion to request a bot to assist with article tagging seems extremely useful. Doc Tropics 14:37, 22 March 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Disagree with stubbing, seems somone has been deleting content bit by bit. Most likely first removing references (because they cant verify it) then content. I would add a verify source tag, and a neutrality tag. A maths expert should look at the old version of article. I have done higher level maths at university, and can say a lot of the things on that page such as sin, cos e.tc are related to islamic mathematics. I think a maths expert should look at it, even if they cant verify the sources, as long as the info is accurate from their view, it should stay-- Misconceptions2 ( talk) 22:13, 22 March 2011 (UTC) reply
  • You're in luck: I have a degree in maths William M. Connolley ( talk) 22:24, 22 March 2011 (UTC) reply
  • It seems like you have a misconception or two with respect to our verifiability policy. Claims that cannot be verified should be deleted, even if they "seem accurate". That is anyway something even most maths experts would not be able to judge without consulting the sources – what they can judge is whether a claim in the article accurately represents what is stated in a cited source (provided that source is traceable, a serious problem for many of J85's edits).  -- Lambiam 23:50, 23 March 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Disagree with stubbing ~ And, I agree with Misconceptions2. Many times AnomieBOT had to intervene to recover references (intentionally deleted?) that were used (and are still used) in other sections or paragraphs of the involved articles. – pjoef ( talk • contribs) 12:05, 23 March 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Disagree: Is stubbing going to be based on a compiled list of all revisions committed by Jagged85 to a particular article ? (assuming of course we reached a consensus to remove all contributions by Jagged85, rather than using tags or the TP) Based on the "too much work" rhetoric we've been hearing from those in favor of stubbing, I doubt this approach is ever going to happen. When an article is stubbed by wiping out the contributions of hundreds of other editors over years, you're essentially fighting an alleged "bias" with another form of bias, and for that I'm opposed to subbing. Al-Andalusi ( talk) 03:04, 24 March 2011 (UTC) reply
    This "bias" meme needs to stop as it is entirely made up. The entire issue is based on the established fact that Jagged severely misused sources—statements are asserted in the encyclopedia, when investigation shows that the statements are wrong and the sources have been misinterpreted. Anyone doubting this should spend some time carefully checking some of the evidence pages listed at WP:Jagged 85 cleanup—can any of the evidence be refuted? (Answer: While it's always possible that a couple of mistakes are on the evidence pages, the core message they contain is irrefutable—sources have been severely misused.) Johnuniq ( talk) 03:35, 24 March 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Yes but not quite now. The work needs to be done; those opposed really need to think about why they are prepared to keep wiki polluted with admitted Jagged errors. We should let arbcomm make up its mind over taking the case just as a matter of politeness, but whether they accept it or don't there is no need for further delay. Probably a good way to proceed would be to add the Jagged-cleanup template to articles that are most dubious; if no-one makes any serious effort to do the work required to remove the template, then the article should be stubbed William M. Connolley ( talk) 10:46, 24 March 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Time to start I think. Arbcomm have stalled, as they usually do, we've given them their "polite" time. I've just redirected Avicennism William M. Connolley ( talk) 10:13, 30 March 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Diagree. As I've stated before, such a blanket action has potential for abuse. For example, Islamic ethics was deleted and the user merely said " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Jagged_85_cleanup" as his justification. The fact is that I had contributed heavily to this article. Here's what I propose: if a user finds, in his/her good judgement, that material violates wiki policies, than he may delete it, providing a short justification for the material deleted on the talk page. Bless sins ( talk) 02:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Disagree with stubbing. Note that also Islamic metaphysics was wholesale deleted by the same user, and I see no evidence that Gun Powder Ma disapproved of that action. Ruud is the only anti-revisionist who has actually spoken up in favor of the validity of the subject matter, with all other participants in the cleanup effort expressing vague disdain for the whole concept of Islamic scholarship, i.e. validity of subject matter. Also note that there is a high degree of disagreement going on about which parts of the Jagged 85 affected articles are non-factual. As pjoef noted, several of these abuses apparently stem from a subject matter that is controversial (revisionist vs. anti-revisionist) with valid citations being deleted for points that editors find "patently absurd", or deleted for Jagged's presentism and peacock terminology, which would be considered unacceptable in an article on Western history (wholesale deletion) and the persons who want to delete the articles entirely seem to fall entirely on one side of that issue. It's also worth noting that the emergency is said to consist of patently non-factual information, yet the persons with said knowledge have not gone and excerpted everything claimed to be non-factual and moved them to a page for review, which would take a matter of hours if the issue is as cut-and-dried as is claimed; unless the entire subject matter is really what they object to, which seems to be the case when entire pages on Islamic ethics and metaphysics are simply deleted by cleanup participants who claim there is "no such thing as Islamic science" etc. Yclept:Berr ( talk) 08:19, 26 March 2011 (UTC) reply
Comment: I think it shows that you have never took part in the clear-up effort and that you have no first-hand experience of it. Recently, I tried to clean-up List of inventions in medieval Islam and about 1/4 to 1/2 of the entries were misquotations, misunderstandings, misinterpretations, false and partial. Once you take the perspective of the masses of unsuspecting reader who trust and rely on the information given, that is the only perspective which counts, the only reasonable solution is to stub those articles as quick as can be and to give other, much more knowledgable editors the opportunity to build up new contents. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 14:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC) reply
Comment - Yclept:Berr, you seem to have misunderstood another editor who once wrote "there is no such thing as Islamic science". The actual statement was that there is no such thing as "Islamic science" or "Christian science"....there is only "Science". No one has ever suggested that Muslims have not made contributions to math and science, he only made a point that science isn't "owned" by an individual's religious beliefs. Doc Tropics 15:33, 26 March 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Extremely strong agree. Wikipedia has a common issue wherein more misinformation is deemed better than less but correct information. Jagged's actions have caused a huge amount of harm—these pages can be immensely influential—and instead of sitting and twiddling thumbs, these articles need to be outright rewritten into stubs by knowledgeable editors. This sort of behavior is absolutely unacceptable, and so is complacence in the face of it. Furthermore, exactly why is Jagged not permanently banned from Wikipedia? :bloodofox: ( talk) 00:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Agree with :bloodofox: except the bann. The jagged activity is just a tip of an ice-berg, where mostly anonymous contributors rewrite valid political, philosophical and religious articles into their own POV, usually by heavy WP:SYNTH which is often discernible by obvious leaps-to-conclusions. Another example is my own and a couple of other guys' struggle against invented star names added by a less honest user in a series of edits circum 2006. Now essentially done. Rursus dixit. ( mbork3!) 11:14, 12 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Arbcomm declined – clean-up now or never

A number of people suggested, above, that we wait until arbcomm decide whether to take the case. They have now declined it [4] William M. Connolley ( talk) 20:34, 31 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Fine, arbcomm was declined, so let's start with the clean-up now. With five years of Wikipedia experience on my belt I can say one thing with absolute certainty: the surest way to slow our initiative down to the point of virtual standstill, to make our efforts useless, is to get entangled in endless debates on talk page in the hope of reaching consensus on something where never total consensus can be achieved. There are users who want to stub and rework these articles and there are users who don't want to stub and rework them. No amount of discussion will ever change this.
So, we do a real, quick and crisp vote now on my proposal. If a majority accepts it, fine, we have a mandate. If not, it is just as well. We form a coalition of the willing to work on the most impaired articles. After all, every article is free to be edited by anybody and we can coordinate our efforts just as effective without any formal decision. Either way we should start work as soon as possible. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 22:06, 31 March 2011 (UTC) reply
No need to vote again, as you say, we could talk all night. Just start doing it. If you get over-enthusiastic, people will complain. I'm going to have a rest for a moment but I'll be back soon William M. Connolley ( talk) 22:21, 31 March 2011 (UTC) reply
I concur with WMC - no need to vote again; ArbCom made it clear this is a job for the community. I hadn't previously participated but am willing to help when and where I can. Doc Tropics 12:29, 1 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Ok, then we need a page where we can coordinate our efforts a bit. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 11:19, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Tag / template?

Recognising that cleanup is slow and uneven, I think we need a tag / template that can go into mainspace (not talk) at the head of articles to warn readers that the article is dodgy, in a particular way, and lead them off over here if useful. Or is there one already? For example Al-Kindi needs such a tag (its also a std.jagged problem up for GA review, if you're interested) William M. Connolley ( talk) 09:38, 23 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Above, Ruud mentions {{ Jagged 85 cleanup}} which he created a few weeks ago. Checking 'what links here' for that template shows that it is not currently used, but it was mentioned in a query at bot requests. Jagged edited around 7800 articles but many of those are probably not worth tagging. In general I don't like tags and I don't want to form an opinion on this atm, but a procedure might be to pick some subset of the 7800 articles and tag those. A list of the articles in alpha order is at (warning: big page!) Articles main and Articles other (those links can be found at WP:Jagged 85 cleanup).
I could produce a list of articles where Jagged has made 10 or more edits (1085 articles), or 100 or more edits (96 articles). Since I've got the list sorted, here are the articles with 500 or more edits (# edits, # major edits, # bytes added, from the Contribution Surveyor):
Johnuniq ( talk) 10:12, 23 March 2011 (UTC) reply
Thanks. I've added the tamplate to Al-K as a sort of experiment. I think it is useful William M. Connolley ( talk) 10:16, 23 March 2011 (UTC) reply
Hmm, problem. I see at this revision of the article ( Al-Kindi, just after you added the template), that the template wants parameter "subpage". I have just looked that up using the "search" at the bottom of WP:Jagged 85 cleanup and added it to the article. We would need a way to automate that, if tagging a number of articles.
The template needs a bit of tweaking. I'll mention my thoughts rather than just editing it: "source" should be "sources"; probably should use piped links so the long "Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/" title is not shown (in two links). Johnuniq ( talk) 10:34, 23 March 2011 (UTC) reply
I tweaked the template in accordance with these thoughts.  -- Lambiam 07:57, 24 March 2011 (UTC) reply
Thanks, you inspired me to tweak it some more. I removed the display of "Jagged 85" as that does not seem necessary, and I started a doc page. I have added a link to the template in the "Tools" section at the bottom of WP:Jagged 85 cleanup to help us find it later. Johnuniq ( talk) 10:18, 24 March 2011 (UTC) reply
Bot-adding the template to those articles with 100+ edits sounds like a good use of this template. Dialectric ( talk) 14:55, 23 March 2011 (UTC) reply
I could produce a page with the necessary information for a bot (list of article titles, with cleanup subpage for each). I think it would be possible to get someone to then add the info, or if pressed, I could do it manually. Johnuniq ( talk) 10:18, 24 March 2011 (UTC) reply

I've just redirected Medicine in medieval Islam to History of medicine. It would be good to have a page specifically for the ongoing work, to list what is done. I'll make one later if no-one beats me to it William M. Connolley ( talk) 16:21, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Now a stub, though there is "disagreement" shall we say William M. Connolley ( talk) 08:31, 5 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Tag for stubbed pages?

I think it would be nice to have a tag for stubbed pages (on the article, not the talk), assuming there are going to be quite a few of them, saying something like "This is a stubbed version of a much longer article that was found to have problems. You may see the earlier version at []. Please help us rebuild it" William M. Connolley ( talk) 08:31, 5 April 2011 (UTC) reply

I just started looking at this, but then tried WP:STUB for ideas and am overwhelmed by the possibilities. What would be appropriate, a prominent box at the top like {{ Jagged 85 cleanup}} (perhaps titled "Jagged 85 stub"), or a proper "stub" which is a subtle message at the bottom (example Bowen knot)? Normally such a template would put the page in a suitable category: is "Category:Jagged 85 stub" suitable? Or, should some name not involving the name of an editor be used for the stub template and its category? Johnuniq ( talk) 09:47, 5 April 2011 (UTC) reply
I think the "stub" tag should be at the top, and be prominent. That might go some way to alleviate the concerns of the vociferous few who complain about text being lost. It might also draw a few more folk into helping rescue stubbed material. I started a discussion at talk:STUB, perhaps they will have some ideas William M. Connolley ( talk) 10:10, 5 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Some input from one of the regulars at Stub sorting here - the normal procedure for stubbing these articles is to simply treat them as any other articles. As far as stub sorting is concerned, checking the page history to see whether materiall has been excised would simply slow down an already pretty overwhelming task. A separate template to hbe added to the page, similar to a cleanup template, would rpobably be the best solution of you want to mark the articles. I've made a mock-up at User:Grutness/Shortened - please take a look and mess around with it a bit to see if it can be improved. That would certainly be better than an actual stub template (named as such), since not all shortened articles are going to be stubs - a 20k article could be shortened to 10k - still well beyond stub length. Please don't call it {{ Jagged 85 stub}} or similar - using the word "stub" in the template name or text is likely to cause problems with any automated counts and sorts we do for stub template usage. Grutness... wha? 10:49, 5 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks very much for the help Grutness. If applied to Medicine in medieval Islam, the text from User:Grutness/Shortened would render as:
This article has been shortened from a longer article which contravened Wikipedia policy.
Details of the earlier versions may be found in the page's history. Please help us to rebuild the article properly.
What about this text instead?:
This article has been shortened from a longer article which misused sources.
Details of the earlier versions may be found in the page's history. Please help us to rebuild the article properly.
Thoughts? Re the name, we can say "shortened" instead of "stub", but is "Template:Jagged 85 shortened" ok? Johnuniq ( talk) 11:20, 5 April 2011 (UTC) reply
I'm fine on both then new wording and name. The only reason for the "stub" name problem for WP:WSS is it's easy to automatically sort for templates which use "stub" but not "Stub-Class" and know that they should all be among the different by-subject stub types. Any other templates which start to use the term will confuse things greatly. Grutness... wha? 22:25, 5 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Time to do this I think. I've just made Template:Jagged 85 shortened based (I hope) on J's suggests revision to G's example William M. Connolley ( talk) 15:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Also, if we use this consistently, it would provide a handy list of stbbbed article, via what-links-here William M. Connolley ( talk) 15:51, 6 April 2011 (UTC) reply

In the news

http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/5482023/did-al-farabi-really-invent-sociology.thtml William M. Connolley ( talk) 08:08, 28 March 2011 (UTC) reply

I've also seen an academic complaining about psychology in medieval Islam on his blog, I'm just unable to find a link to it again. — Ruud 09:54, 28 March 2011 (UTC) reply

New Categories

Al-Andalusi recently created a number of categories including Category:Alchemists of the Islamic Golden Age and Category:Islamic psychology and Category:Islamic technology. While some of them may well be a good addition to Wikipedia, others including Category:Islamic psychology and Category:Islamic technology are problematic names. As many have argued on wikipedia, science, technology, and other such categories are independent of religeon, and cannot be accurately described as 'Islamic'. I suggested this to Al-Andalusi, who responded that this was just an opinion. I would like to see what others opinions are on the creation and naming of these categories. Dialectric ( talk) 06:11, 1 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Hope you don't mind, but I have refactored the above by inserting ":" before "Category" and inserting a link to the Islamic technology category. The colon makes a link to the category (without a colon prefix, it puts this talk page in the category).
I have not (yet) looked at these to see how they are being used, but I would not support terminology like this unless it were well known in an academic field—is there such a thing as "Islamic psychology"? Johnuniq ( talk) 06:42, 1 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Hi there. For now, I've been following the naming convention of the existing categories such as Category:Islamic mathematics, Category:Islamic astronomy...etc
We will think about the naming later. Besides, the claim that such fields cannot be called "Islamic X" is an opinion really. An editor wrote on the use of "Islamic mathematics" after surveying all terms used in the literature:
" ["Islamic mathematics"]...together with Arabic mathematics by far the most frequently used term in academic literature in to refer to this period in the history of mathematics. Of these two Arabic mathematics is probably used the most, however Islamic mathematics is more common in recent literature." Al-Andalusi ( talk) 15:00, 1 April 2011 (UTC) reply
We're actually going to discuss it now rather than later. Thanks for expressing your opinion. Doc Tropics 15:11, 1 April 2011 (UTC) reply
I don't like the naming either, and IMO "Category:Mathematics of the Islamic Golden Age" or "Category:Islamic Golden Age mathematics" would be more suitable. Al-Andalusi ( talk) 15:40, 1 April 2011 (UTC) reply
I'm one of several who had previously questioned this type of usage and definitely don't approve unless there is a specific academic or historical context that supports it in a particular situation. When a Jewish researcher makes a discovery do we credit it to "Jewish Science"? Is a Protestant therapist practicing "Christian Psychology"? The answer to both is "No". As mentioned above, science is independent of religion. I could support titles like "Science during the Islamic Golden Age", but "Islamic Science" doesn't seem to be appropriate or accurate, and I would urge that we change them. Doc Tropics 12:45, 1 April 2011 (UTC) reply
I second the suggestion of using "Islamic Golden Age" rather than "Islamic" for the categories. That's why for the new categories I recently created, I used "Astronomers/mathematicians/alchemists/... of the Islamic Golden Age" rather than "Islamic astronomers", "Islamic mathematicians"...etc which are confusing and problematic. Al-Andalusi ( talk) 15:26, 1 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Having a discussion *before* doing all this re-cat would have been rather better. But now you've begun: Category:Alchemists of the Islamic Golden Age seems reasonable. Category:Islamic psychology doesn't. Category:Psychology of the Islamic Golden Age wouldn't be reasonable either, because it implies the existence of a coherent body of work that there is no good evidence for William M. Connolley ( talk) 15:36, 1 April 2011 (UTC) reply
"Islamic Golden Age" is a subjective term and has no place in categories. We don't have categories for the Dutch Golden Age and what not, either. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 09:47, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Category:Dutch Golden Age plus several subcategories does actually exist. If the period of Islamic history is scientifically known by that name, reflecting that in the categories seems neutral to me. Amalthea 10:14, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Ouch, that was a shot in the foot, wasn't it? ;-) However, the 16th-17th century Dutch Golden Age is an accepted term, while Islamic Golden Age isn't. The long-standing WP lame game about extending the Islamic Golden Age as far in time as possible amply shows that btw too. The conventional ending is 1258, the Mongol sacking of Baghdad, while Jagged85 hand-picked in POV style sources which he believes advocated an ending as late as the 16th century. So, any categorization will fail as NPOV, since we would not know how to categorize everything from the 13th to 16th century (and there is also a dispute just as big about its beginnings). Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 10:22, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply

I propose the deletion of all categories related to an "Islamic Golden Age" at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 April 2 Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 10:50, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Point of order can someone explain to me why this discussion is being carried out on the Jag discussion page rather than the ones normally used for these purposes? I would think this discussion would be of interest to the Islam and History of science portals. I do not see what the connection is to the Jagged 85 discussion. Thank you. - Aquib ( talk) 22:36, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Further discussion can proceed at the CfD page, as GPM has raised these issues there. Spacepotato ( talk) 23:31, 3 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Proposal: Abbasid Caliphate

This is starting to move into the difficult area of whether the name Golden Age is appropriate at all, a subject that has come up several times, without resolution, in Talk:Islamic_Golden_Age. For many, but possibly not all, of the categories and articles currently framed as related to the Islamic Golden Age, describing them as of the Abbasid Caliphate would be more accurate. The Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258) is widely discussed as such in academic literature, and avoids the problem of nebulous time and space definition of this golden age, and the term's apparent value judgement. ( "abbasid caliphate" 4,150 hits on google scholar, "golden age of islam" 1210 hits on google scholar; "islamic golden age" 342 hits on google scholar). Dialectric ( talk) 13:53, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Support: First thing of which all participants should be aware is that there is no ideal solution and rejecting proposals without offering better ones won't help the discussion. In this light I support your proposal as the least worst solution. "Islamic Golden Age", by comparison, is much less used, less well defined in space and time, and has POV issues. As for a categorization along the lines "Islamic Science" etc. I strongly argue the implications would be simply too enormous to be decided by us few. If we support the creation of such categories, this would give rise in turn to categories Christian Science, Hindi Science, Buddhist Science, perhaps even Mormon Science and Scientology Science. Sorry, but this is too hot a topic but to be discussed and decided by anything less than the whole WP community. So, it must be Mathematics in the Abbasid Caliphate etc., which has the additional advantage of including also Christan and Jewish scholars and contributions. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 14:19, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
The "Islamic" in "Islamic mathematics" and "Islamic science" refers to the Islamic civilization, as the "Greek" in "Greek mathematics" refers to the Greek civilization. This is common terminology, your argument comparing this to "Christian science" does not hold water. You might wish to do a little background reading instead of making such ill-advised comments. — Ruud 15:27, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
You confuse the logical categories. If "Islamic" refers to the Islamic civilization, then "Christian" and "Buddhist" refers no less to the Christian and Buddhist civilizations, and such categories would be just as correct. However, I'd argue that "Greek" is mainly a culture or nationality, while "Islamic" primarily refers to a religion as "Christian" does. So people will argue 'why having categories on Islamic science but not Christian science?" and given the powerful analogy you won't prevent them from estabishling these categories for Christianity and other religions. And in fact, there is much more to say in favour of a Christian science: until 1800 university life was near totally shaped by the Christian belief (with a third of them directly founded by Catholic order such as the Jesuits). Even in the American Colonial Colleges which were the farthest from any official church alignment, there were strong religious influences (see link). By contrast, 'Islamic' science was largely pursued not in the mosque schools, but in scholarly circles loyal to the royal courts, that is in a much more secular environment. So, voting for Islamic science here means effectively voting in favour of paving the way for categories such as Christian Science, Hindi Science, Buddhist Science etc. Do this, fine. But be aware of the consequences for the whole of Wikipedia's categorization system, people won't accept what they perceive as double standards for science in Islam and in other religions. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 16:58, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
What your personal opinion on this issue is is largely irrelevant. We should follow the terminology used in academic literature. — Ruud 16:56, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
So you'd agree to Category:Science in the Abbasid Caliphate? Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 16:59, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Obviously not. — Ruud 17:03, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Point of order can someone explain to me why this discussion is being carried out on the Jag discussion page rather than the ones normally used for these purposes? I would think this discussion would be of interest to the Islam and History of science portals. I do not see what the connection is to the Jagged 85 discussion. Thank you. - Aquib ( talk) 22:33, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Further discussion can proceed at the CfD page, as GPM has raised these issues there. Spacepotato ( talk) 23:31, 3 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Too many categories

There is an absurd proliferation of categories. So Al-Kindi is in:

801 births | 873 deaths | 9th-century mathematicians | 9th-century philosophers | Arab astrologers | Arab astronomers | Arab mathematicians | Medieval Arab physicians | Arabic-language philosophers | Arab scientists | Iraqi Shi'a Muslims | Iraqi astronomers | Iraqi mathematicians | Iraqi scientists | Iraqi philosophers | Iraqi astrologers | Medieval Iraqi physicians | Astrologers of the Islamic Golden Age | Muslim philosophers | Pharmacologists | Commentators on Aristotle | Astronomers of the Islamic Golden Age | Mathematicians of the Islamic Golden Age | Physicians of the Islamic Golden Age

ie he is in several repetitive overlapping groups:

  • Iraqi astronomers | Iraqi mathematicians | Iraqi scientists | Iraqi philosophers | Iraqi astrologers
  • Arab astrologers | Arab astronomers | Arab mathematicians

or the other way, as a mathmo he is:

  • 9th-century mathematicians, Arab mathematicians, Iraqi mathematicians, Mathematicians of the Islamic Golden Age

Some rationalisation is required William M. Connolley ( talk) 12:43, 5 April 2011 (UTC) reply

To some extent this is a failing of the current category system which can easily grow quadratically in size. In this case (or actually most of the biographies of pre-modern scientists), categorizing them by a certain historical period is more important and useful than categorizing them by ethnicity or "country of origin", so I would suggest:
  • Not categorizing them by the specific ethnic group (e.g. "Arab") or at least not creating elaborate substructure (x astronomers, x mathematicians) limiting to a single category. Ethnicity is not always determinable with full accuracy for these historical figures, so there even a few biographies have this whole set of categories repeated for two possible ethnicities.
  • Not applying categories like "Iraqi mathematicians" to people who where born an lived in what is modern-day Iraq (at most a single category like "Born in modern-day Iraq".) Such categories already lead to difficulties for biographies of people born over century ago, and for the biographies of medieval scientists I doubt their usefulness. Also, someone looking in the category "Iraqi mathematicians" is probably looking for modern mathematicians.
— Ruud 11:11, 6 April 2011 (UTC) reply
I'm working on that William, but I'm waiting for the category naming issue to get resolved. I was planning to restrict "Iraqi", "Syrian"...etc categories to modern scholars and replace the occurrence of those categorizes in medieval scholars with "People from Baghdad"...etc as discussed on Ruud's TP User_talk:Ruud_Koot#Islamic_mathematics. We also need to be consistent with the way other scientist categories are organized. Al-Andalusi ( talk) 15:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Further disagreements over cleanup

The same old problems are occurring at Avicennism and Medicine in medieval Islam, where User: Al-Andalusi is now taking the place of Jagged and Aam. Your input is invited William M. Connolley ( talk) 20:46, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Who is User: Al-Andalusi anyway? He has barely registered one month ago and already edits like a pro (complicated stuff like templates, categories, using even hotcats!). He is no way new to WP, but very likely old wine in new skins. We might just as well ask him why he does not continue to edit under his old username. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 21:03, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
1663 edits since: 2007-11-26. Amalthea 21:09, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Yep, saw it too. He has registered in Feb 28, 2010, not 2011. My bad. Consider the above irrelevant and apologies. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 21:12, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
If you think the stuff I've been doing are complicated then you're probably on the wrong website. At least I'm using my time for good rather than nagging day and night how articles on Islamic/Arabic science (or whatever you call it) needs "cleanup" ("cleanup" here = wiping out from history as if it never existed as evident by William's latest revisions) Al-Andalusi ( talk)
That Jagged pollution needs cleanup is well established. If you're in denial over the existence of a problem, then you're unlikely to help with the solution. Are you going to go the way of Aam? William M. Connolley ( talk) 21:33, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
So Al-Andalusi, since you restored Medicine in medieval Islam, does this mean you can vouch for the factual accuracy and NPOV of it? For a start, could you please confirm the factual accuracy and NPOV of the points I addressed below? Are they worth keeping? And how many more such flaws does it take before you would consider the article as a whole flawed? Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 22:02, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
I agree with user Al-Andalusi. In dealing with Jaggedism the preference should be to rephrase, not wholesale deletion. Rephrase, remove peacock terms, and replace unreliable sources with RS. Deleting should only be used as a last resort, when all else fails. I would also say that those with strong views on the subject should probably not be involved in the cleanup process. Wiqi( 55) 22:30, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply
those with strong views on the subject should probably not be involved - then you'd better recuse yourself, hadn't you? Or: was your advice only intended for others to take, not for you? William M. Connolley ( talk) 14:15, 3 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Agree with Wiqi55 and Al-Andalusi - Aquib ( talk) 23:57, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply

My take

So, Medicine in medieval Islam has been tagged for one year now and Jagged 85 is the main contributor by a country mile (599 edits, the second most active contributor has just 15 to his name). What I see is the usual POV, SYN and OR all the way:

  • Father complex (x is father or pioneer of this and that branch of science): "Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis), regarded as the father of modern surgery", "[Avicenna] is regarded as the father of modern medicine", "Avenzoar...considered the father of experimental surgery" etc.
  • The anachronistic attribution, one has to say the appropriation, of terms, modes and practices which really belong to later Western or modern history:
    • "Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine was the first book to offer instruction for the care of the aged, foreshadowing modern gerontology and geriatrics..."
    • "The earliest known treatises dealing with environmentalism and environmental science, especially pollution, were Arabic treatises..."
    • "Other medical contributions first introduced by Muslim physicians include the discovery of the immune system, the introduction of microbiology, the use of animal testing, and the combination of medicine with other sciences..." and so on
  • Long checked and refuted claims such as "The first psychiatric hospitals and insane asylums were built in the Islamic world as early as the 8th century".
  • Barley disguised cheap blows to European history: "Unlike medieval Christian physicians who relied on demonological explanations for mental illness, medieval Muslim physicians relied mostly on clinical psychiatry and clinical observations on mentally ill patients".

Conclusion: The article is made of total bollocks in the familar style and diction and is utterly beyond remedy. So it should be stubbed and reworked. Burden of proof rests on those who want to keep the current material ( 1 and 2). These users should vouch for its factual accuracy and NPOV. Then the others are invited to give counter-examples. If we have, say, twenty or thirty counter-examples showing NPOV, SYN, OR and unverified claims, the article will be deleted. Then we move to the next article where the same process may be repeated. The upshot is that is is really important that we now move from lofty meta-discussions on the talk page to the grim business of clearing up the mess. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 21:55, 2 April 2011 (UTC) reply

As per my understanding of applicable policy Please show diffs for 8-10 failed verifications in the article. Please stick to policy and use actual failed verifications, rather than personal opinions such as such and such has a father complex and this is an anachronism. The criteria is verifiability. Thanks - Aquib ( talk) 00:10, 3 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Please don't invent policy. What you're linking to is a throwaway comment, not to policy William M. Connolley ( talk) 10:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Agree with GPM. Not only does Jagged have lots of edits, those also represent very large blocks of text. The stubbed state is better. If those who keep complaining about the stubbing would actually do some work to improve the article instead of just getting in the way, things would get better William M. Connolley ( talk) 10:09, 5 April 2011 (UTC) reply

One small problem

The people planning and performing the stubbings of articles Jag edited are unable to actually demonstrate there is anything seriously wrong with the articles in question. Maybe that question should be sorted out before we go any further. Due process. - Aquib ( talk) 04:51, 6 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Nonsense. The issues that Jagged—who frankly should be permanently banned from the project—have instilled upon so many articles are evident and numerous. Misinformation, as demonstrably rampant as in Jagged's case, must not be allowed to stand. Cut it now, and then sort out what may be kept. In the mean time, the wide scale, certain spread of misinformation should not be allowed to continue. Frankly, I question your motives here; you are clearly not exactly concerned about the numerous violations that Jagged has introduced here, nor are you acting with the suspicion one would reasonably expect from misinformation waged on as large a scale as Jagged has wrought. :bloodofox: ( talk) 05:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Your characterization of my statement as nonsense is neither constructive nor is it civil. Please follow the guidelines for discussion. This is a content issue. Let's keep it that way. Thank you. - Aquib ( talk) 20:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Archiving

I recently archived this talk page because it was too long, and I was having a little trouble finding new comments (I believe the last comment that I archived was from 15 January 2011). Aquib has just reverted the archive ( diff) with edit summary "let's keep the record easily available please". The record is pretty plain as far as I can see, but for some reason everything associated with this issue has to be made more difficult, so would anyone like to comment on the desirability of archiving this page. Johnuniq ( talk) 07:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Talk page archiving is standard William M. Connolley ( talk) 08:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC) reply
John, sorry I reverted your archiving without explaining properly, but you have archived references to vandalism and POV push by other editors done in the name of the Jag cleanup. These references are included in my recent Arbcom appeal, which will now have broken links. In addition, this page contained a great deal of information and insights into the cleanup which are quite recent and topical, but now archived. So archiving may be standard, but in this case, I have to object. Hope you understand. - Aquib ( talk) 03:11, 7 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Your arb case was, predictably, rejected, and has been removed. So its irrelevant. J has restored the archiving, and I agree. I hope you understand.
Also: Aam, you are developing a tendency to soapbox on these talk pages, and use them for your own personal use, rather than for improving the article. Please don't William M. Connolley ( talk) 08:11, 7 April 2011 (UTC) reply
All noticeboards and arbcom cases have broken links. That's standard because people link to talk pages, and those talk pages are then archived. There is nothing that can be done about that other than to follow each such link with a permalink (when posting the original message). As WMC notes, the recent arbcom case no longer exists (except in the history). Johnuniq ( talk) 08:30, 7 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Got a good one for you

And I quote from Al-Jazari before I cleaned up this particular bit of nonsense:

al-Jazari's largest astronomical clock was the "castle clock". It was a complex device that was about {{convert|11|ft|m}} high, and had multiple functions besides timekeeping. It included a display of the [[zodiac]] and the [[Heliocentric orbit|solar]] and [[lunar orbit]]s, and an innovative feature of the device was a [[Pointer (computing)|pointer]] in the shape of the [[Lunar phase|crescent moon]]

Geddit? William M. Connolley ( talk) 22:19, 7 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Need a hint? Jagged was very keen for Al-J to have "invented" all sorts of stuff before his time, and this one was to have been the invention of programming: [5] William M. Connolley ( talk) 17:47, 8 April 2011 (UTC) reply
LOL. However, I see that Analog computer still has several "precursors" including the clock. I have updated Talk:Analog computer#Misuse of sources to show Jagged's edits. Johnuniq ( talk) 01:03, 9 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Done with Medicine in medieval Islam

Too many hard fails. I'm going to check around for moves and redirects; the articles should remain in the mainspace, with their article histories, under their former (or consistent) titles, and without redirects. - Aquib ( talk) 04:27, 8 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Or, put another way, you were wrong and have been wasting our time. Any chance of you apologising for all the reverts that you now know were pointless? William M. Connolley ( talk) 07:26, 8 April 2011 (UTC) reply
How about this explanation for you, WMC:
  • It was the moving of Mathematics out of the mainspace, along with its history, and your subsequent defense of this action, which first alarmed me.
  • It was my subsequent investigation of that article, in preparation for an attempt to clear the failed verifications, that led to my discovery of the abusive manner in which Pjoef was pushed out when it was initially moved.
  • I also discovered there was no substantive discussion at that point other than an attack on Pjoef's talk page.
  • It next became apparent you had not bothered to really check Mathematics, as evidenced by the edit summary this looks totally made up which you gave while deleting a claim from the article; a claim which was, in fact, not totally made up.
  • Your reasons for stubbing Medicine were even less specific; something like I checked it and tried to clean it up but there are too many errors.
  • Your circumspect attitudes towards discussions of content, combined with your otherwise aggressive approach to discussion in general, did little to move useful discussion forward.
It was those circumstances that led to a growing concern on my part the articles were not being treated with the care and consideration they deserve by virtue of their topics alone - irrespective of any editor or any content question.
And to the cleanup team in general:
It is the relative abundance of editors willing to participate in pulling these articles down, and the relative scarcity of editors interested in rebuilding them, which makes this particular situation especially serious. This is not your fault; it is an unfortunate dynamic of the encyclopedia.
While there are those among you who I know to be of good faith, I caution you to choose your allies carefully. Do not let your ends justify your means, do not sacrifice your principles in the name of expediency. There are important values that must be upheld in even the most distasteful of circumstances.
I am standing aside for the moment to observe how the cleanup moves forward from this point. There are still many, perhaps greater, challenges and dangers posed by the difficult nature of this task and the questionable approaches taken by some. It is incumbent upon those of good faith to guard our principles even in these difficult circumstances. If needed, I shall try to assist in this regard.
Aquib ( talk) 13:29, 8 April 2011 (UTC) reply
In other words, you never intended to actually improve the articles and you're not going to help with the cleanup, but you reserve the right to complain more in the future if you feel like it? Thanks so much for your contributions.... Doc Tropics 16:49, 8 April 2011 (UTC) reply
There is a fair question behind the veneer.
I acceded to the truncation of Science in medieval Islam 6 months ago, and pitched in to add some overview. Simultaneously, a new overarching approach to Islamic history was imposed by another editor; an article structure based on an account of history by place and time, rather than an holistic treatment of science in Islamic civilization. Nothing else ever happened over there as far as I know. So I suppose I was expected to rebuild it myself under the watchful eyes of the champions of verifiability. Perhaps I should have tried to do so, but seeing the article abandoned by everyone else, being unfamiliar with alembics, having no interest in Tusi's balls, I wondered if it was appropriate.
Again, with Mathematics, I initially resigned myself to the eventual truncation of the article, and only became opposed upon a later, closer examination of the events surrounding the stubbing. This examination I undertook in order to establish if the original article could be refactored and resourced.
So I have toyed with the idea of diving into this subject area. I now have a much deeper appreciation for the material and firmly believe it deserves a good treatment. In addition, it would give me an opportunity to curb the well intentioned but misguided attempts to change article names and categories so as to perpetuate the confusion surrounding distinctions between Islam as a religion, a region, and a civilization inclusive of non-Muslims.
This temptation must however be balanced against my other interests of world and Islamic culture, society, history, law and religion. And my top priority, which is to develop a set of templates which can be used to counter, in some ways, the western cultural bias of the English Wikipedia.
The English Wikipedia is a western-culturally oriented encyclopedia. While English is a global language, our encyclopedia maintains an implicit cultural exclusivity through its manual of style, which dictates naming, honorifics, blessings and other non-western cultural norms must be dispensed with in favor of the AP Stylebook's preferences. This is unnecessary and oppressive. There are crews patrolling the Islamic portal constantly changing people's names, blessings (such as PBUH), editing hadiths, all to suppress Islamic cultural norms from English articles. This is all unnecessary. Wikipedia can enable cultural preferences in our profiles, editors can use templates to specify cultural variations, and this place can become much more diverse, inclusive and welcoming. Much richer and stronger.
Imagine checking the Burmese culture box in your WP Preferences, and seeing how Aung San Suu Kyi's name is actually spelled and pronounced. Uncheck the box, and go back to the AP Stylebook. Ot check the multicultural checkbox and watch the expressions and customs of a thousand cultures light up.
So I have been considering this question of whether I should be involved in the recovery of these articles, and I have not yet made a decision.
Aquib ( talk) 21:52, 8 April 2011 (UTC) reply
I'm glad you were able to read past the sarcasm and frustration and answer some underlying questions; thank you for that. While I don't necessarily agree with the points you make above, I respect your obvious intelligence, education, and good intentions. Let's hope for more fruitful interactions in the future. Sincerely, Doc Tropics 22:17, 8 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Well thank you Doc! Here's to better days! Regards - Aquib ( talk) 22:31, 8 April 2011 (UTC) reply
@Aquib: I appreciate many of the points you made above, and I do not intend to spend long on what is essentially an off-topic meta discussion, but I contest some of your statements. In particular, while cultural diversity is attractive, we have to face the facts: there are people here who dedicate their wiki lives to changing every "English" to "British", and there are other people who do the reverse. Likewise, some put every negative aspect of Catholicism into various articles, mainly those dealing with child abuse by priests, while others are dedicated to removing or at least downplaying all such criticisms. Some Google searching shows that there is an Internet industry dedicated to promoting the glories of Islamic achievements (notably muslimheritage.com) and Jagged has copied that promotion into Wikipedia. I suppose there are editors (I have not seen any) who spend time adding negativity about Islam, but the editors interested in this cleanup process are simply removing incorrect information—the motivation for that is a great appreciation and respect for the encyclopedia, and has nothing to do with any personal feelings about cultural aspects. It sounds as if you would favor software features so that anyone who wanted could see, for example, "PBUH" in the appropriate places. I oppose that kind of walled garden approach: present information as neutrally as possible—readers who would normally see PBUH need to be aware that neutral information is not presented in that fashion. Johnuniq ( talk) 01:55, 9 April 2011 (UTC) reply
John, I'm interested in hearing more of your thoughts on this topic. Yes, it is complex. And, as you say, we are straying off a bit in some aspects, so we can take those aspects up in a more appropriate venue. I would however like to make a couple of points here, not to you in particular, but generally in regards to how cultural barriers are related to the subject of discussion on this page.
WP:MOS actually imposes some needlessly burdensome aspects of western culture on our editors and readers. It is the price of admission, and not everyone is willing to pay that price. Those people most likely to be repelled or offended also happen to be far more likely to take an interest in certain fragile, vulnerable articles such as the ones we are discussing on this page. And they are not all Muslims. Many cultures use terms of respect and reverence in their public discourse.
Lowering these cultural barriers is inevitable in the long run, unless we want to end up in those walled gardens with restricted topic zones, or even with multiple English versions of Wikipedia. Or we may have to settle for something that is not really an encyclopedia at all. However this turns out, Wikipedia will not be universally accepted among English speakers if it cannot embrace cultural differences.
And besides, breaking down cultural barriers is the right thing to do.
Aquib ( talk) 04:48, 9 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Interesting you mention "walled gardens" because that was exactly the reason given why the community decided to outright delete one of Jagged85's articles, Timeline of modern Muslim scientists and engineers. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 17:45, 10 April 2011 (UTC) reply
This incident you bring up seems to illustrate my point; it's a natural result of the lack of diversity in our editing population. I'm not sure I understand your point, please elaborate; see John's remarks above as well. - Aquib ( talk) 00:03, 11 April 2011 (UTC) reply
I don't think diversity has ever constituted a value as such, truthfulness, verifiability, intellectual honesty and rigid analysis do, but unfortunately I don't see many of these values applied in all these tagged articles. And English native speakers have as much a right, as any other Wikipedia, to run their version in their own way, and not allow it to be watered down to some kind of United Colors of Benetton where each cultural Ghetto runs its own business and claims its own version of truth. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 09:20, 11 April 2011 (UTC) reply
How would allowing templates in articles for cultural preferences, if readers choose to see them, create cultural ghettos? Is it because more people who speak English as a second language would begin to edit content? - Aquib ( talk) 23:25, 11 April 2011 (UTC) reply
That doesn't quite add up, does it? In fact, there is at least one person working on the cleanup whose user page identifies them as English second-language. - Aquib ( talk) 13:36, 12 April 2011 (UTC) reply
It's an interesting discussion but I'd suggest it doesn't help in fixing the current mess. -- Merlinme ( talk) 20:17, 12 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Agreed, but would you say it is inappropriate to discuss ways in which further such situations of this nature could be avoided or mitigated? - Aquib ( talk) 21:34, 12 April 2011 (UTC) reply
On second thought, I believe you are right. I doubt there is going to be any further progress here in terms of avoiding a repeat of this situation. What remains to be discussed here belongs in a different venue. - Aquib ( talk) 23:32, 12 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Stub and rework

List of inventions in medieval Islam

Talk:List of inventions in medieval Islam#Stub and rework. Discussion there please. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 14:09, 9 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Psychology in medieval Islam

Talk:Psychology in medieval Islam#Stub and rework. Discussion there please. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 00:53, 10 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam

Talk:Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam#Stub and rework. Discussion there please. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 19:28, 10 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Bimaristan

Talk:Bimaristan#Stub and rework. Discussion there please. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 21:16, 12 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Timeline of science and engineering in the Islamic world

Talk:Timeline of science and engineering in the Islamic world#Stub and rework. Discussion there please. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 22:32, 13 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Ibn al-Nafis

Talk:Ibn al-Nafis#Stub and rework. Discussion there please. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 20:25, 14 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Al-Biruni

Talk:Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī#Stub and rework plus a move request to Al-Biruni. Discussion there please. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 22:42, 14 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Alhazen

Talk:Alhazen#Stub and rework. Discussion there please. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 23:31, 14 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Book of Optics

Talk:Book of Optics#Stub and rework. Discussion there please. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 00:30, 15 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Al-Jazari

Talk:Al-Jazari#Stub and rework. Discussion there please. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 23:30, 15 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Medieval Islamic sociology

Talk:Medieval Islamic sociology#Stub and rework. Discussion there please. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 00:24, 16 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Islamic sociology

Talk:Islamic sociology#Stub and rework#Stub and rework. Discussion there please. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 00:32, 16 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Redirect

I stop the listing here. For further progress in the cleanup effort, please consult:

"In progress" comment on cleanup pages

The cleanup project is vast, as I'm sure we're all aware. In cases where an editor decides to undertake individual checking of Jagged diffs, I'd suggest there be a "work in progress" comment on the cleanup page, next to the article diffs (where eventually there will be a tick or cross). Personally I'm going to add a comment next to "Islamic Golden Age" along the lines of "currently working backwards by major diff, at edit +732 characters, 10th July 2010." The main purpose of the "in progress" comment is to avoid duplicated effort, but it also gives some indication of how quickly progress is being made on what is a pretty huge undertaking. -- Merlinme ( talk) 20:16, 12 April 2011 (UTC) reply

It is often too hard to follow all of Jagged's multiple edits, but if wanted for a particular article (ask here or at my talk), I can produce a summary of diffs where all consecutive edits by Jagged are represented by a single diff. I have just added a section for Islamic Golden Age which reduces 907 edits to 122 diffs (see here). The diffs are pretty pointless for that article because it clearly needs to be stubbed, but it may be useful to have that summary if investigations are needed in the future.
Also, I have wondered whether I should put each Cleanup page into alphabetical order. The Contribution Surveyor listed articles with those with the highest number of contributions first, but it is unnecessarily hard to find items within a page. Any thoughts? Johnuniq ( talk) 00:10, 13 April 2011 (UTC) reply
The combined edit diffs on a particular article's Talk page are extremely helpful, thanks. I'm not so bothered about alphabetical order on the cleanup page, it's easy enough to search the screen if required. -- Merlinme ( talk) 15:42, 13 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Johnuniq, could you produce a list of articles edited by Jagged85 sorted by the number of his edits? That would be an urgent desideratum. Top Edited Articles on X!'s Edit Counter I found to be "disabled for users with over 45000 edits". Regards Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 10:04, 15 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Yes. While it would be possible to write a script to examine Jagged's contributions, that's not necessary because the Contribution Surveyor has already done the work: it listed all articles that Jagged edited, and the list includes an edit count. Syncategoremata obtained and split the list into the "cleanup" pages in June 2010, and I joined them to make one list in a local file on my computer. Search this page for my comment with timestamp "10:12, 23 March 2011" where I list the top five articles, and mention how big the list would be depending on how many edits to each article were wanted. I have made a list showing all articles with 20 or more edits (527 articles) here. For future reference, I have noted it at WP:Jagged 85 cleanup#Other lists. Johnuniq ( talk) 11:46, 15 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Use of pre-Jagged versions in stubs

I'm currently using the "pre-Jagged" version of Islamic Golden Age as the "Jagged cleaned" version. I thought this was appropriate as there was a significant article before Jagged made any edits. The article certainly isn't perfect (it's actually quite interesting how many problems there were pre-Jagged; some he seems to have copied into other articles), but it seemed appropriate for an article with a substantial amount of edits before Jagged got going. I still think it's far better than the current version, mainly because it's of a manageable size, and I have more faith in the references used. My intention now is to edit the article up to something approaching an acceptable version (looking at edits after my checkpoint, and based on other references and research).
I've had a quick look at the histories of the other stubbed articles, and the pre-Jagged versions are already stubs, and not very high quality ones at that, so I don't think it would be appropriate for them. I was curious though to find out what people thought about the general approach. -- Merlinme ( talk) 16:16, 13 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Sounds like a suitable approach. We're lucky to have contributors like you who are prepared to do the job. Macdonald-ross ( talk) 19:37, 13 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Is it appropriate to shift POV as the articles are cleaned up?

There are at least two aspects of this cleanup. One is the removal of unverifiable content, the other is the shifting of POV through recharacterizing "Islamic" achievements as "Arabic", recharacterizing inventions as technological innovations. While there is no question regarding unverifiable or misrepresented content, these other aspects are more nebulous.

The overall POV aspect is a recurring theme underlying the discussions of article content around the cleanup. There is at least one major contributor to the cleanup whose states the English Wikipedia belongs to people whose first language is English. There are several other editors who, while not directly endorsing this position, do generally support the actions of this biased editor.

Under the circumstances, it would be more appropriate for the cleanup not to undertake changes which might be perceived as undermining the accomplishments of Islamic civilization, or inferring the accomplishments do not belong to Islamic civilization at all. I personally do not think a careful examination of the literature will support a shift away from charaterizations of "Islamic invention ad innnovation" towards "Incremental Arabic technological advances".

If there are cleanup editors with strong opinions to the contrary, let us take this question up separately, beginning at the NPOV noticeboard. If such discussions are necessary, let them be dealt with separately from the VFY cleanup.

- Aquib ( talk) 13:40, 17 April 2011 (UTC) reply

I think there will inevitably be a shift in point of view when moving from a Jagged article which suggests (with bad use of sources) that Muslim scholars invented everything and there was an Islamic industrial revolution, to an article which suggests that the Islamic world was an important means of preservation and transmission between Greek, Roman, Chinese, Indian and medieval European bodies of knowledge, and a number of important advances in particular fields were made in Islamic countries. I would suggest though that this should become a normal content discussion, i.e. if you don't like what someone's done, challenge it on the Talk page of that article, or alter the article directly (assuming you can find good sources to support your position). -- Merlinme ( talk) 21:11, 17 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Agree with Merlinme. Let's shift the discussion to concrete articles and specific questions and let's try to discuss them on the basis of references. Regards Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 21:22, 17 April 2011 (UTC) reply
MM, GPM and all. The cleanup team should not pick which aspects pertaining to the entire subject area are treated centrally and which are dealt with locally. As these efforts are centrally coordinated, attempts to decentralize certain aspects will be viewed as attempts to leverage the central venue to maximize the team's effectiveness while decentralizing other aspects to minimize attention to them by others. I have good reason to believe the following aspects are on the cleanup agenda. Correct me if I am wrong.
  • There are those among the cleanup who feel the Islamic science material has been exaggerated not only by Jagged 85, but by proponents of the popularization of Islamic culture, such as the creators of 1001 Islamic Inventions. These efforts by modern Muslims to promote a greater awareness of Islamic history and culture are viewed as attempts to spin or inflate Islamic achievements, in spite of the fact their material is for the most part well sourced. I don't know Makdisi. But I have heard Makdisi's name thrown about in a disparaging way: please do not tell me there is someone here qualified to discard the works of accredited scholars. We are not discussing theories regarding the flatness of the earth. 1001 has been taken to RSN and dismissed, an action I sincerely hope was done after careful consideration. In contrast, no such dim views of other attempts to popularize science or science history are noted. James Burke, Carl Sagan are not accused of spinning science or science history. There is a place in our world for those who popularize academic subjects, including Islamic ones. In this regard, there is some appearance of the Islamic source material having been judged by a different set of criteria.
  • In that same regard; the need for a respect and appreciation of different cultures. The need for a neutral point of view with respect to the histories of all cultures and civilizations, raising the question of potentially casting Islamic scientific achievements in a lesser light through the use of topic, title and terminology. If there are those who wish to change the "history of Islamic sciences" to the "history of the Arabic preservation of ancient science, and related incremental improvements in technology", let them make their cases here. I feel confident most of the heavy hitters in the fields of Islamic history and civilization do not agree with such a view. NPOV. Due weight must be apportioned to different views based on the degree of consensus in the literature around them. Islamic science, as a topic transcends the narrow field of science history and is an integral component of any discussion of Islamic civilization. The term Arabic science is a technical, academic term. Its application in the context of a general purpose encyclopedia is misleading. It tends to take the discussion of Islamic science out of the context of the broader civilization.
I do not wish to have these discussions spread (diffused, obscured) across the talk pages of however many articles this question will affect. All the proponents of such changes on the affected articles watch this page. If we cannot have these issues addressed here, I will find another way to address them in a centralized venue.
- Aquib ( talk) 02:52, 18 April 2011 (UTC) reply
So what do you suggest? That the designation "Islamic <achievement>" is NPOV, whereas "Arab <achievement>" is not? Isn't that itself a POV position on your part? In any case, I don't see editors giving prefential treatment to any one of these options (other than Jagged 85 who habitually referred to Jewish, Christian and atheist scientists as "Muslim"). Such designations are decided on a case by case basis, and often enough "Arab Muslim" will suffciently cover both aspects of identity. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 03:30, 18 April 2011 (UTC) reply
That is not acceptable, especially coming from someone who wishes to exclude all editors from English Wikipedia whose native language is not English. You should exclude yourself from any decisions regarding cultural aspects of this encyclopedia.
For starters, I will refer the cleanup team to WP:MOS which states the subject will be in bold lettering near the beginning of the article. Some of the stubs are popping up with other terms describing the topic, also in bold, next to the bolded topic term.
In addition, I will remind them these decisions are most assuredly not made on a case by case basis. WP:Consistency prefers a consistent naming pattern, especially within articles and across articles where possible. So these article names should not be attacked or undermined. They are now consistent and they should remain that way.
I am changing the stubbed articles. Per WP:MOS, WP:Consistency. the subject is bold, references should be internally and externally consistent.
- Aquib ( talk) 03:41, 18 April 2011 (UTC) reply
I'm not going to get into a discussion about the names of things as I don't have a view. The statement "Islamic science, as a topic transcends the narrow field of science history and is an integral component of any discussion of Islamic civilization" concerns me however Aquib. If you mean "Islamic science should take into account the history of Islam" I don't really have a problem; but if you mean "Islamic science should be considered outside of science history" I do have a problem. Science history, or the history of who invented what first (as Jagged tended to view it) is relatively amenable to verification. Either the Romans did have watermills or they didn't. To ignore the wider field of science history because something is called "Islamic science" just seems to me to be incorrect. By all means consider the broader Islamic cultural background, but the "science" part of "Islamic science" is a subset of "science", and should be treated as such.
With regard to my specific edits I don't mind if you raise them on the talk page or here or on my talk page. If you raise them at a venue where I see them I will do my best to respond. If you raise questions about other people's specific edits then if I see them and I have a view I'll do my best to respond to them as well. It concerns me however that you do not seem to want to acknowledge quite how bad Jagged's edits were, and I also think it's a shame that you do not seem able to contribute substantially to the editing cleanup, with most of your related edits apparently on Talk pages. If you felt you had the time and expertise to contribute to fixing the articles, then presumably articles which you fixed would more closely reflect the point of view you have on the various subjects. -- Merlinme ( talk) 10:16, 18 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Sorry, but given how you are twisting my words and assume bad faith I see no further point in continuing a discussion with you. There are many users involved in the cleanup and it is unacceptable how you are trying to wikilawyer them into categorizing Arab uniformly as Islamic achievements (see here and my reply here). As I said, I don't get the impression that there is much of a shift from "Islamic science" to "Arab science" in the cleanup (or vice versa) and these terms are anyway interchangeable in case of Arab Muslim scholars. In the end, it is reasonable to decide these matters on the basis of the specific context and concrete article which can be discussed on the various talk pages. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 10:08, 18 April 2011 (UTC) reply
GPM: As the cleanup is not only a cleanup, but an exercise in stubbing. Insofar as it is not only a stubbing but a reforging of article POV, I will have opinions; opinions I am entitled to express every bit as much as the cleanup team is entitled to cleanup, stub and attempt to reforge. This has been going on for a year now. How much content has been contributed by the cleanup? Excluding stubbings? How may bytes have been contributed to these articles by the actual cleanup participants? A few thousand lines, tops.
To the question of Jagged 85; the mantra chanted, the talisman clutched to the hearts of some of those engaged in stubbings, in an effort to ward off the evil of other views. If Wikipedia has generally suffered from the Jag episode, the Islamic portal has done so in particular. To throw out the name of Jag as an explanation, an excuse, a point of reference for every item which comes across these talk pages is a weak means of defending one's position on questions regarding articles which are, after all, stubs.
To the question of Islamic science, it should be science viewed in an Islamic context, and Islam viewed in a scientific context. And all of it is history. It is all these things; they are inseparable. Clear and easily nailed down with references? Only in a few cases where some would wish to claim priority. For the rest, it is very much an open question. Those who claim otherwise, who claim to have ultimate answers, are a concern.
Much, but not all, of Islamic medieval science is Arabic, per se. Arabic science is however, necessarily a subset of Islamic science, which was also written in Persian, Sanskrit and Greek. To this point, the two are not synonyms as is claimed by some. These are alternate views of 2 large sets of science history, or the history of civilization, with a sizable intersection between them. In this regard, the coherence of the reader's experience must be the ultimate arbiter. When a person wants to learn more about Islamic science history, discontinuity in titles and categorizations will hinder their efforts. If you have no interest in this subject, feel free to stop reverting my changes.
As to the question of how your words are being twisted, I am open to clarifications and corrections. We all have opinions. You and I disagree on the value of cultural diversity, among English Wikipedia editors. Correct me if I am wrong.
- Aquib ( talk) 18:34, 18 April 2011 (UTC) reply
I don't really have anything to add to what I said in my previous post, so will concentrate on fixing articles as I have the time. -- Merlinme ( talk) 19:12, 18 April 2011 (UTC) reply
One last point as you brought the Islamic portal up, Aquib. I wonder where they were in all these years when Jagged plastered the place with his POV. They must have looked damn hard the other way. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 22:18, 18 April 2011 (UTC) reply
To be fair, there must be something to what you say. And a lot of knowledgeable people, such as yourself, seem to have been aware for a long time as well.
Ironically, if someone (present company excepted) really wanted to damage a topic area, this might be the best way to do it. And it seems this encyclopedia, knowing so much about so many things, in some ways knows but little about itself. Almost human; no coincidence there I suppose.
- Aquib ( talk) 00:45, 19 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Noticeboard

Move requests

Talk:Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī#Request move to Al-Biruni Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 20:05, 17 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Categories for discussion

  • "Foo in medieval Islamic civilization"
  • "Foo in the medieval Islamic world"
  • "Foo in medieval Islamic community" Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 20:05, 17 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Afds

RFC

Talk:Medieval art#Historical comparison of wealth Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 00:32, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Help checking source

I would be obliged if somebody could check "Industrial Milling in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: A Survey of the Evidence for an Industrial Revolution in Medieval Europe", Adam Robert Lucas (2005), Technology and Culture 46, pp. 1-30. I believe it is available online, but you need an academic account, which I don't have. The referenced sentences I'd like to check from the Technology section in Abbasid Caliphate are: "The industrial uses of watermills in the Islamic world date back to the 7th century, while horizontal-wheeled and vertical-wheeled water mills were both in widespread use since at least the 9th century.[citation needed] By the 11th century, every province throughout the Islamic world had industrial mills in operation, from al-Andalus and North Africa to the Middle East and Central Asia.[20] ... Such advances made it possible for many industrial tasks that were previously driven by manual labour in ancient times to be mechanized and driven by machinery instead in the medieval Islamic world.[24]", Thanks, -- Merlinme ( talk) 21:02, 17 April 2011 (UTC) reply

On page 10 of the cited reference:

"While the manuscript sources pertaining to the industrial uses of waterpower in early medieval Islamic countries have not been adequately assessed, partially because detailed work remains to be conducted or made known to Western scholars, there is clear archaeological evidence in the Middle East for the use of water mills from as early as the seventh century. The archaeological evidence suggests that both horizontal- and vertical-wheeled water mills were in widespread use from at least the ninth century. For example, the remains of thirty-one mills now thought to date from between the seventh and thirteenth centuries have been located at two sites in Iraq and Iran, while the sites of twelve horizontal-wheeled water mills in Oman have been dated to between the eighth and tenth centuries."


By the time of the Crusades, there were reputedly mills in every province of the Muslim world from Spain and North Africa to Central Asia. These mills were engaged in a wide variety of tasks, including grinding grain, fulling cloth, hulling rice, sawing timber, preparing pulp for papermaking, and crushing mineral ores and sugarcane."

Al-Andalusi ( talk) 21:20, 17 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Excellent, thank you. That's verified then for the first couple of sentences. Is there any support for the last sentence, i.e. "Such advances made it possible for many industrial tasks that were previously driven by manual labour in ancient times to be mechanized and driven by machinery instead in the medieval Islamic world."? Or from another source, for that matter. -- Merlinme ( talk) 21:27, 17 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Even if Lucas really claims this, it is not necessarily true. Industrial watermills originated in Roman times: List of ancient watermills: Earliest evidence Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 22:05, 17 April 2011 (UTC) reply
To restate the point more clearly: The Arabs, semi-nomads coming out of the desert, adopted the hydrotechnology of the Greeks and Romans, they stepped in the footsteps of their technological tradition. Or to put it even more precisely: Christian peasants and watermillers adopted over time the Islamic faith, thereby establishing watermilling as part of 'Islamic technology'. For this reasons, it is self-evident that, as Lucas maintains, "evidence in the Middle East for the use of water mills [dates] from as early as the seventh century". In reality, it dates as far back as the 1st century BC, and the Muslim conquerors acquired these technologies by conquering the territory where these hydrological techniques had been already practised for centuries. So, the real question is rather what was original in 'Islamic' watermilling, what did they contribute to the existing set of hydrotechnology? Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 22:18, 17 April 2011 (UTC) reply
That's not what Lucas says, and I don't think there is an evidence for the claim that the technology was adopted from the Greeks or Romans. In fact Lucas states:

"While it would seem that a number of Roman advances in industrial milling were completely lost to subsequent civilizations, seemingly independent innovations by the Chinese and a number of Islamic societies appear to have provided the inspiration for subsequent industrial milling activities in Western Europe."

"It has been argued for some years by scholars of Islamic technology that the earliest use of water mills for ore-crushing, fulling cloth, and papermaking was in Islamic societies, and that a possible pathway for the diffusion of these technologies into Western Europe was through Islamic Spain, North Africa, and Byzantium.While a comparison of the earliest evidence for industrial milling in Western Europe with that claimed for contemporaneous Islamic societies does suggest that this was the case, a systematic examination of the Islamic evidence remains to be conducted"

Al-Andalusi ( talk) 22:37, 17 April 2011 (UTC) reply
You might also check out his book Wind, water, work: ancient and medieval milling technology By Adam Lucas [6] here he is quoting from Hill although see: History of engineering in classical and medieval times By Donald Routledge Hill [7] Lucas criticizes Hill for not always citing his sources but Hill is more neutral than what got reported to wikipedia. J8079s ( talk) 23:29, 17 April 2011 (UTC) reply
What Lucas believes is one thing, but what the archaeological records says another. At List of ancient watermills you find archaelogical evidence for watermills in every Roman province which was occupied by Muslims, from Spain and Morocco over Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt to Israel, Jordan and Turkey (the main authority, but by no means the only, is Örjan Wikander). When the semi-nomadic Arabs conquered these lands, they found them full of watermills operated by the local Christian populace. From them, they adopted the watermilling technology which was unknown in their native Arabia.
@Merlinme, you can use the references in the linked articles, they are all from my pen and I can guarantee their accuracy. For the technological genius of the Greeks, see Watermill#Western world and Water wheel#Greco-Roman world. The Greeks invented most kinds of hydraulic devices, waterwheels and watermills, and Muslim engineers did a good job on diversifying their use, but not much more. Lucas, who is an autodidact, is a good reference, but to get the full picture you have to turn to top notch classicists like Örjan Wikander, Andrew Wilson and John Peter Oleson, who have shown that watermilling technology was already fully developed by the Greeks and Romans. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 01:13, 18 April 2011 (UTC) reply
The water-wheel itself certainly dates back to before Islam, and it seems that some industrial applications do as well; Lucas himself in the paper in question says (pp. 7-8)

Over the past two decades, a number of classical archaeologists and historians have demonstrated that Roman use of waterpower was far more widespread and innovative than was previously thought. This research has been in the context of a more favorable assessment of Roman technological achievements more generally. Archaeological evidence compiled by Örjan Wikander from over forty Roman-era sites suggests that the vertical-wheeled water mill was in widespread use throughout the Roman Empire from at least the first half of the second century C.E., and that it was a preferred technology for some industrial applications. Ausonius’ reference to sawmills used for cutting marble on a tributary of the Moselle in the late fourth century C.E. is now accepted as authentic. Other literary references and recent archaeological evidence from Byzantine-era Ephesus indicate that waterpowered sawmills were widely used in some parts of the former empire until the seventh century, and probably later.

and then goes on to discuss evidence for waterpowered forge mills.
Whether any specific application of waterwheels is an innovation of medieval Islam would I suppose have to be looked at on a case-by-case basis. But, it's also possible that the volume of industrial applications of water power increased at this time, even if the things it were used for were not new.
Also, I should point out that Pliny XVIII.xxiii.97 is about grinding grain, not crushing ore. However, there is discussion of the evidence for water-powered ore-crushing in Roman times in pp. 21 ff., Machines, Power and the Ancient Economy, Andrew Wilson, The Journal of Roman Studies 92, 1-32 ( JSTOR  3184857.)
Wikander seems uncertain about the fulling mill at Antioch: "Other industrial applications of water power remain qualified guesses—as, for instance, the attempts at detecting fulling-mills in first-century A.D. Antioch on the Orontes" (p. 152, Handbook of engineering and technology in the Classical world, ISBN  0195187318.)
The DRH book mentioned by J8079s, A history of engineering in classical and medieval times ( ISBN  0415152917) has some information on industrial water power in medieval times, both in Islam and in Europe (pp. 169 ff.)
Finally, I don't think that the passage quoted quite verifies the statement in the article, "By the 11th century, every province throughout the Islamic world had industrial mills in operation": (1) The passage says that there were mills in every province, and that, looking at the collectivity of mills, some were agricultural (grinding grain) and some industrial. It's not possible to conclude from this that there were industrial mills in every province. (2) The passage says "By the time of the Crusades", not "By the 11th century".
Spacepotato ( talk) 04:26, 18 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Ok, thanks for clarifying that point in the article, Spacepotato. However I'm still not sure whether the statement "Such advances made it possible for many industrial tasks that were previously driven by manual labour in ancient times to be mechanized and driven by machinery instead in the medieval Islamic world" is reasonable or not. It sounds to me like some tasks may have been mechanized in the Islamic world which were not mechanized in the ancient world. I'm therefore inclined to leave it, especially if it's supported by the Lucas reference. Someone with a better knowledge of the subject may however wish to clarify it. -- Merlinme ( talk) 09:56, 18 April 2011 (UTC) reply
True, Pliny, Naturalis Historia, XVIII, 23.97 refers to the pounding of grains, but trip hammer has also references to the ancient practice of crushing ore. Burnham 1997 offers a detailed discussion of the evidence. For Roman sawmills, another industrial application, see Hierapolis sawmill. In the end, relying on Lucas is not enough, but his findings have to be checked against the findings of classical archaeologists like Wikander, Wilson and Oleson. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 10:22, 18 April 2011 (UTC) reply
If there are scholars, such as Lucas, who differ in their opinions of these matters, then all views should be presented with appropriate weight. We should not be in the business of deciding which scholars are correct. Even those of us who are scholars in these areas must present opposing views in order to maintain neutrality in the material. - Aquib ( talk) 20:17, 18 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Why isn't Jagged 85 permanently banned from Wikipedia?

Is there a reason why Jagged 85 isn't permanently banned from the project? Since I started contributing here in 2005, I can think of no other user I've witnessed perhaps more deserving, particularly since Jagged's last comment on the matter seem to be altogether defiant despite a previous arbitration outcome. Jagged is still editing, without apparent consequence, while man hour after man hour is poured into cleaning up what was unquestionably blatant deception on his part all Islam-related articles on Wikipedia. Jagged may be sticking to video games and pop music as of now, but I'm sure he's just as capable of behaving in this manner when handling those subjects as well.

On the positive side, I would like to note that I am impressed with how deftly and patiently this is being handled by those involved in the clean up. :bloodofox: ( talk) 22:13, 19 April 2011 (UTC) reply

No issues outside of Islamic science topics have been identified, as far as I'm aware. A ban would thus not improve Wikipedia, while not banning him seems to. Amalthea 22:49, 19 April 2011 (UTC) reply
It is irritating but Amalthea is correct. I was shocked by Jagged 85's statement at the failed March 2011 ArbCom case (see permalink): it is clear that Jagged is convinced there is no problem other than some minor matters of detail, and was encouraged by the recent misguided support expressed recently from various editors, yet Wikipedian norms are such that no sanction should apply, so long as they stay away from this topic. There is no doubt about the outcome should Jagged ever return, but nothing helpful would come by seeking a sanction now. Johnuniq ( talk) 23:51, 19 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Amazing; it seems entirely naive to extend any further trust to Jagged. However, if that is what the community has decided, I guess it will be a learning experience... :bloodofox: ( talk) 00:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply
It is strange, but it's not trust because people have occasionally looked at Jagged's contributions in recent months and not found anything that was a problem. It might be useful if someone would check whether any sources have been misused recently, but the topics have no relation to those under consideration for the cleanup. Johnuniq ( talk) 03:16, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply
A ban is easily circumvented by creating a new identity. All a ban really means is "that was bad; don't do it again". If someone creates a new identity and does it again, then they're banned again (possibly with an IP block), but if Jagged 85 came back as Deggaj 58 and didn't do anything wrong, I doubt anyone would even notice.
The only real argument for a ban is retribution and pour encourager les autres. Surveying the vast number of articles which need to be cleaned, retribution does seem quite tempting, but I'm not convinced it would improve the project, compared to him editing responsibly using an identity everyone's keeping an eye on. -- Merlinme ( talk) 08:18, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Jagged 85 has already secretly edited under a new identity, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jagged 85/Archive from June 2010. The real reason why he has been so soft-cushioned lies well outside Wikipedia, I mean its lack of a competitor. If there were a rivalling open enyclopedia, people from there would have pointed to the shit in our articles on Islamic science and technology piling up into the clouds long ago. Wikipedia could not have afforded to ignore the problem so long and would have banned him for a life-time in no time. But Wikipedia knows it enjoys a monopoly, and as any monopolist it knows it can get away with complacency. I've been saying for a long time that the best thing happening to WP would be a serious online competitor which brings in a fresh air and creates some external checks and balances. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 13:44, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply
I didn't realise there were sockpuppet issues as well. If that's the case I don't understand why he wasn't banned at that point. -- Merlinme ( talk) 17:07, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Considering all that has been said here, I fully support a permanent ban of Jagged 85. Actions such as these require consequences. The "ban" feature exists for a reason, and if there's a text book example of a user who deserves to be permanently banned from Wikipedia, here it is. The damage Jagged 85 has caused is immense—it's ridiculous to just let this go. :bloodofox: ( talk) 18:40, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply
While what people have said above is valid (particularly Gun Powder Ma's interesting point about how nonsense on Wikipedia would be rejected more robustly if there were a serious competitor), the fact is that if a proposal to ban Jagged were taken to any noticeboard, the proposal would be quickly defeated because "blocks are not punitive" and other stuff that would be trotted out. In other words, if there is no evidence that Jagged is currently being unhelpful, there is no reason for a ban (because retribution or even common sense are not among Wikipedia's objectives). Even the sockpuppetry would be regarded as in the past and so inconsequential now. If Jagged is ever encouraged by misguided onlookers to speak up again (see my 23:51, 19 April 2011 comment above), people might consider raising the matter somewhere.
BTW my summary edits ( example) include all edits by Jagged 85 and 193.164.132.6 and 93.97.55.135 as equivalent. That is, on the rare occasions where J did a couple of edits, then one of the IPs, then J again, there will only be one diff showing the effect of all the consecutive edits made by any of these three users. Johnuniq ( talk) 22:51, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Could we not then argue that:
  1. Jagged's fraudulent edits are resulting in numerous ongoing and current problems—that this is an ongoing and current issue
  2. Jagged has made no effort to fix them despite knowing all too well what he has done, even having stooped to employ sockpuppets
  3. Jagged remains altogether defiant on the subject, attempting to downplay or dismiss what he is responsible for, despite only he knowing the total extent of his fraudulent edits and blatant personal POV insertion
Again, I think it's absurd to just let him continue as if nothing has happened and hope he won't pull something similar in the future; a movement to get him banned and any other sockpuppets of his that may rear their head has every reason to be launched. What more does it take than an administrator to press a button, and for others to deny future appeals? Again, some may argue that banning would be pointless, but what then is the "ban" feature for? :bloodofox: ( talk) 02:59, 21 April 2011 (UTC) reply
I share your frustration, but the Wikipedian approach is that blocks/bans are used to prevent disruption, and there has to be evidence leading to a reasonable expectation that further disruption would occur if the block/ban were not in place. While it's obvious that if all those working hard on the cleanup were to disappear, there would be people putting all the garbage back, and Jagged may very well become emboldened and participate (per my above comment, Jagged has recently demonstrated a complete non-understanding of the problem). Yet, preventive blocks that merely anticipate future events are not used. By all means seek someone else's opinion, but my advice would be to forget the issue because brooding about the futility of Wikipedia's policies is the fastest way to burn out (I could explain several things unrelated to this page which really irritate me). Johnuniq ( talk) 03:16, 21 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Science in medieval Islam is the key

Not relevant to the Jagged cleanup, should go in the article discussion if anywhere

Science in medieval Islam is the key article in this series. Its primary purpose should be to elaborate the cultural and historical context, including

1. The assimilation of ancient scientific knowledge

2. The factors which contributed to the development (not just refinement) of ancient scientific knowledge

  • The Arabic language as a lingua franca for scientific knowledge
  • The Islamic religion (ie the duty of pilgrimage to Mecca, and its consequences for the dissemination of culture and knowledge)
  • Islamic(ate) civilization as a medium for the promotion of intercultural tolerance and dialog

3. The transmission of Islamic scientific knowledge to Europe

4. The various lands, cultures, and religions which contributed the scientists of medieval Islam.

5. Whether a comparison and contrast to medieval European civilization with its rigid hierarchy, and its strictly enforced Roman Catholicism, is useful in terms of explaining why science survived and prospered in medieval Islam, is still a question. I need to do more research.

Islamic science is the preferred term in most respects, but Arabic science does convey the essential role of a common language. The term Arabic, in this context, tends to confuse the casual reader with its other implications - a single people, a specific country, the only language. There is a place for both these terms in the series of articles, but not without clearly establishing the implications of the differences between these terms. By elaborating these differences, we elucidate the key concepts. The term Arabic science has its place, bolded in the lead with accompanying redirects.

The conversation about these terms and their underlying implications becomes the key to explaining Islamic science. It is the heart of the article Science in medieval Islam. It is an epistemological approach, and it is the correct approach.

The second purpose of the article is to introduce the various sciences and scientists, and link to their articles, which in turn link back to Science for context.

The preliminary work done on the stub of Science in medieval Islam needs to be reviewed. Whether the concept of science history as a history of time and place is the best approach, remains in doubt. Islamic science was in essence a cultural florescence rather than a series of events. An organization by topic area, rather than a chronology, seems most suitable. I believe the casual reader and the student would agree.

I find this paper by Berggren essential. I am still going over it. Berggren

Aquib ( talk) 02:18, 21 April 2011 (UTC) reply

History of scientific method

I'm dubious about History of scientific method. Just drawing it to your attention William M. Connolley ( talk) 19:54, 25 April 2011 (UTC) reply

I've seen a lot worse; a quick web search suggests there is a reasonable amount of support for the suggestion that the medieval arab scientists developed experimentation in ways the Greeks didn't, and well before Francis Bacon. Whether the article goes too far I don't know, it would need a detailed study of the sources. I'm currently bogged down in another article, so doubt I'll be able to look at scientific method for a while. -- Merlinme ( talk) 08:43, 26 April 2011 (UTC) reply

1001 Inventions

The new article 1001 Inventions raises an old issue: Is muslimheritage.com a reliable source? This question has been mentioned at RSN#18 and RSN#27. Before raising this again at WP:RSN I thought I would ask for opinions here. Johnuniq ( talk) 04:50, 10 May 2011 (UTC) reply

I think the two mentions you have found on the RS Noticeboard address problems with muslimheritage.com. In summary, muslimheritage.com is unreliable because, among other things, it releases a lot of non-peer reviewed work, has no clear review board or process, and has published a number of works with numerous citation problems, including the Arslan Terzioglu article mentioned in your RSN#27 link. That paper, as an example indicative of the problematic works that can be found there, has a number of serious misattributions and outright false claims. A few are discussed at [8] Dialectric ( talk) 05:04, 10 May 2011 (UTC) reply
Aren't 1001 Inventions and muslimheritage.com two completely different projects? I've wondered in the past, too. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 15:46, 10 May 2011 (UTC) reply
Muslimheritage is (c) FSTC, ie. Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation, the same organization responsible for 1001 inventions, so they have that connection, at least. Dialectric ( talk) 23:07, 10 May 2011 (UTC) reply

cite check

Is this source being misused? Amber Haque (2004), "Psychology from Islamic Perspective: Contributions of Early Muslim Scholars and Challenges to Contemporary Muslim Psychologists", Journal of Religion and Health 43 (4): 357–377 It is cited 39 times for varying claims see [9]could some one with access check here [10] or [11] if she provides a bibliography I would like to have a a list. thanks J8079s ( talk) 17:21, 17 May 2011 (UTC) reply

"She" is in fact a he. Here is the bibliography from the paper. Note that this material is subject to copyright. Reproducing it here is, I believe, permitted under the fair use provisions of the copyright laws in Australia where I live. It's from p.377 of the paper.
  • Achoui, M. (1998). "Human Nature from a Comparative Psychological Perspective." American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 15: 4, 71-95.
  • Ahmad, J. (1984). Hundred Great Muslims. Pakistan: Forezsons Limited.
  • Ansari, Z. A. (1992). Quranic Concepts of Human Psyche. Islamabad, Pakistan: Islamic Research Institute Press.
  • Badri, M. B. (1979). The Dilemma of Muslim Psychologists. London: MWH Publishers.
  • Faruqi, I. R. (1982). Al-Tawhid: Its meaning and Implications. VA, USA: International Institute of Islamic Thought, Herndon.
  • Haddad, Y. (1991). The Muslims of America. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Hamarneh, S. K. (1984). In M.A. Anees (Ed.), Health Sciences in Early Islam: collected Papers, Vol. 2, Blanco, TX: Zahra Publications, 353.
  • Haque, A. (1998). "Psychology and Religion: Their Relationship and Integration from Islamic Perspective," The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 15, pp. 97-116.
  • Haque, A. (2004). "Religion and Mental Health: The Case of American Muslims." Journal of Religion and Health, 43:1, pp. 45-58.
  • Haque, A. and Anuar, K. M. (2002). "Religious psychology in Malaysia." International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 12:4, pp. 277-289.
  • Hofmann, M. (2000). Islam the Alternative. Lahore, Pakistan: Suhail Academy.
  • Hussain, A. and Hussain, I. (1996). A brief history and demographics of Muslims in the United States. In Asad Hussain, John Woods and Javed Akhtar (eds.)—Muslims in America: Opportunities and Challenges. Chicago: International Strategy and Policy Institute.
  • Jordan, N. (1995). Themes in speculative psychology. In David Cohen (Ed.), Psychologists on Psychology, New York: Routledge.
  • Kimble, G. (1984). "Psychology's Two Cultures." American Psychologist, 39, pp. 833-839.
  • Mohamed, Y. (1998). Human Nature in Islam. A.S. Noordeen: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
  • Murken, S. and Shah, A. A (2002). "Naturalistic and Islamic Approaches to Psychology, Psycho therapy, and Religion: Metaphysical Assumptions and Methodology—A Discussion." The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 12: 4, pp. 239-254.
  • Nasr, S. H. (1988) A Young Muslim's Guide to the Modern World. Lahore, Pakistan: Suhail Academy.
  • Nasr, S. H. and Leaman, O. (1996). History of Islamic Philosophy. London, UK: Routledge.
  • Norager, T. (1998). "Metapsychology and Discourse: A Note on some Neglected Issues in the Psychology of Religion." The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 6, pp. 139-149.
  • Polkinghorne, D. (1984). "Further Extensions of Methodological Diversity for Counseling Psychology." Journal of Counseling Psychology, 31, pp. 416-429.
  • Reich, K. H., and Paloutzian, R. F. (2001). Editors' Note: From Conflict to Dialogue: "Examining Western and Islamic Approaches in Psychology of Religion." The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 12: 4, pp. 215-216.
  • Zuberi, M. H. (1986). Aristotle and Al Ghazali. Karachi, Pakistan: Royal Book Company.
© Blanton-Peal Institute
I would regard this paper as a very dubious source for material on the history of psychology. It's a tertiary source written not by an established historian, but by a psychologist, and it rarely, if ever, explicitly cites any primary or decent secondary sources for the supposed historical details it reports. On checking a couple of the claims for which it has been cited as a source on Wikipedia, I find that those claims do indeed go somewhat beyond what would be reasonable, even if the source itself could be considered impeccable.
David Wilson ( talk ·  cont) 15:34, 17 January 2012 (UTC) reply

Outside articles of Islamic sciences

I made a heavy ripout of Jagged 85 desinfo in the article on JP Sartres catchphrase "Existence precedes essence". Whether Arabic philosophers really thought "existence precedes essence" is irrelevant, since the article is about JP Sartres catchphrase, not about some discovery. Rursus dixit. ( mbork3!) 22:20, 12 November 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks, I left a summary of Jagged's edits at Talk:Existence precedes essence#Misuse of sources (it's not really necessary after your cleanup, but it may be useful later).
By the way, some recent change means you don't need to use secure.wikimedia.org. Instead, just change the "http" to "https" on a normal URL, example: /info/en/?search=Existence_precedes_essence Johnuniq ( talk) 01:08, 13 November 2011 (UTC) reply
Thanks for the tip. Rursus dixit. ( mbork3!) 16:10, 13 November 2011 (UTC) reply

recent jagged edits

After months of sticking to video game and pop culture, Jagged has recently started editing history articles related to Islam again, though none specifically on islamic science yet. Just making a note so that other editors more knowledgeable in these areas may look them over and avoid the massive POV issues of the past. Dialectric ( talk) 00:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC) reply

List of oldest universities in continuous operation

Hello. I am notifying you of an ongoing discussion on the neutrality board concerning the question of the oldest universities. I am notifying you because the claim which is discussed, namely that the medieval Madrasa of Al-Karaouine in Morocco should be consideded the first university, has been first included in the university list by Jagged85 in 2006. Regards Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 20:51, 30 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Al-Andalus

I happened to stumble upon POV material at Enduring influence on Iberian Peninsula which had been long removed elsewhere. I tried a bit, but it is almost impossible to rectify Jagged's account, so I would argue for total removal, so that people have the opportunity to start from scratch. What do you think? Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 01:55, 25 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Second that. Typical Jaggedian screed. Some of it might be salvageable, but at this point it is probably easier to rewrite it from scratch. Athenean ( talk) 14:32, 25 August 2012 (UTC) reply
Be Bold Use the talk page for rebuilding. I will transclude this to the talk page [12] J8079s ( talk) 17:26, 25 August 2012 (UTC) reply

"Jagged 85" tag

After removing the "Jagged 85" tag from several pages, a discussion ensued on my talk page. J8079s suggested to bring up any issues I have with the tag here, so I've just copied-and-pasted the whole discussion below... Jagged 85 ( talk) 22:27, 26 August 2012 (UTC) reply


Please do not use dishonest edit summaries, as you did here. The {{Jagged 85 shortened}} tag is not an "OR" tag - it is, as you know very well, a reference to your previous abuse of references William M. Connolley ( talk) 16:39, 26 August 2012 (UTC) reply

That tag is original resarch created by several editors (including yourself), who, as we all know, have been abusing and destroying many articles on Wikipedia left, right, and center, out of sheer spite over a very explicitly obvious Eurocentric agenda ("It has been found that many edits involve the undue promotion of Islamic and other non-European scholarship and achievements"), using whatever propaganda they can. Don't even bother trying to go there with me. The fact remains is that your tag is original resarch. Either use a proper Wikpedia tag or don't use any at all. Jagged 85 ( talk) 19:38, 26 August 2012 (UTC) reply
If you continue this way, your RFC will become live again. You essentially promised to give up this stuff; please stick to that promise William M. Connolley ( talk) 21:40, 26 August 2012 (UTC) reply
Edit warring is not the answer. If you want the tags changed use the talk page either on the page in question or at [13] please review [14] J8079s ( talk) 22:01, 26 August 2012 (UTC) reply
No, I never made any 'promises'. I simply said I needed a break from it all. Despite all the harassment, propaganda, witch-hunting, and what not targetted against me, you should be glad I was willing to assume good faith (despite you guys not doing the same) and even co-operate (sometimes I surprise myself how the 'me' of 2-3 years ago even put up with all that rubbish)... But all good will already ended the moment that small group (which you no doubt were part of) started abusing and actively destroying so many articles, literally bull-dozing them one after the other, which was far beyond anything promised (which was simply, you know, fact-checking). Why should I keep any 'promises' if you can't keep yours? It works both ways. And for all intents and purposes, this so-called "Jagged 85 cleanup" has been dead for quite a while, and before that never contributed anything worthwhile to Wikipedia, has done far too much irreparable damage to Wikipedia's reputation as an unbiased neutral source, and not to mention the "Jagged 85" tag completely contradicts Wikipedia's policies and guidelines on slander and personal attacks (see personal attacks and witch-hunting). If you want to slander me so much, do it on the talk pages, not at the top of every single article you've bulldozed. And if you want to make the RfC active again over such a useless tag, then feel free to do so, but just don't expect me to be so co-operative this time. Jagged 85 ( talk) 22:22, 26 August 2012 (UTC) reply
J8079s: Sure. I'll just copy-and-paste this discussion over to the RfC talk page and continue the discussion there. Beats having to get those annoying "New Message" pop-up messages all that time. Jagged 85 ( talk) 22:23, 26 August 2012 (UTC) reply
I guess it's time to ask the ArbCom to impose some editing restrictions on Jagged. Enough is enough. — Ruud 00:12, 27 August 2012 (UTC) reply
And say what to ArbCom? "Jagged keeps making edits we disagree with, like, uh, removing a tag that blatantly violates WP:NOR, WP:NPA, and WP:WITCHHUNT." Yeah, "Enough is enough" indeed... Also, you can continue the discussion here instead of bothering me on my talk page, thank you very much. Jagged 85 ( talk) 00:34, 27 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Who are you and what have you done with the real Jagged85 ?

  • The real jagged would know that Wp:OR is not for maintenance templates. The maintenance tags are not a badge of shame rather the are there by agreement to invite participation in finding a solution. In this case the tags are to warn would be editors that pulling things out of the history with out checking the source is not ok (based on your confession that you sometimes rushed your or had relied on Google Scholar without reading the source)
  • The real Jagged would have acknowledged the hours of tedious good faith work by Editors building the RFC and those who would much rather have you clean up your own mess. (Even if he didn't mean it)
  • This; ("It has been found that many edits involve the undue promotion of Islamic and other non-European scholarship and achievements") has attracted the attention of the Muslim heritage and they want you to stop. SEE [15] Boosterism
  • Please reread the RFC to see what the "real' Jagged agreed to (also see the "Evidence")
  • If it is just about the tags the "real" Jagged would know that the key to getting them changed is collaboration an WP:Assume Good Faith

J8079s ( talk) 02:38, 27 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Concur. Also Completely inappropriate, extremely spiteful used on a number of edit summaries by Jagged85 wasn't good. The tags were entirely appropriate and not at all spiteful. Jagged85, I fear, still hasn't realised the problems he caused and is still trying to blame the mess on other people William M. Connolley ( talk) 09:43, 27 August 2012 (UTC) reply
Don't worry, I'm still the same person. Just call it a change of change of online persona, if you will...
1. No, I doubt the 'old Jagged' would know that. Nevertheless, you did at least attempt to address WP:NOR, but what about WP:NPA and WP:WITCHHUNT? A tag that's clearly designed to slander an editor, how is that not WP:PA? An entire project designed to focus squarely on the faults of a single editor? How is that not WP:WITCHHUNT? As for the "warning" towards other editors, yeah, I've already seen that in action, and come across plenty of editors who are unable to make any improvements to the articles because of you preventing them each and every time... Yet you still expect us to assume good faith?
2. Yes, the 'old Jagged' did assume good faith and acknowledge the hours of tedious work put in to create the RfC... but what about the exponentially greater hours of tedious work the 'old Jagged' put in to create all those articles, only to have them all deleted and stubbed (without even bothering to do any fact-checking) one after the other? And all simply because you were unwilling to assume good faith... Hypocritical much?
3. Nice 'misuse' of a source there... It's an article representing the views of an author, not an entire organization. It's just a reprint of an article by Craig Aaen Stockdale, who also happens to be a Wikipedia editor I've come across before. The reason he wrote that article wasn't to attack me, but to discredit the Omar Khaleefa source I was then using. Nothing I added on the psychophysics topic went beyond what that source had already claimed. Nowhere does 'misuse of sources' figure into this anywhere. And oh yeah, when that counter-article was published in 2008, I immediately added it to Wikipedia... What a shocker!
4. The 'old Jagged' was simply under stress and pressure, not to mention the threat of a possible ban and a mob of angry Eurocentric editors on a witchhunt. That's all there is to it. It's kind of like how if a suspect makes a statement while under torture, it doesn't really count as evidence in a court of law.
5. The 'old Jagged' was more of a lone editor. As the RfC pointed out, only a tiny percentage of his edits involved talk page discussions. Also, it's kind of hard to assume good faith towards a group whose sole purpose to exist is to assume bad faith towards an editor. Even then, I still tried to give them a chance, until they started irresponsibly destroying so many articles, one after the other. Again, refer to point 2 above regarding hypocrisy. As for 'collaboration'... I don't see any such willingness on your part to collaborate with editors that have opposing views, but all I've seen is a lot of (for lack of a better term) 'cockblocking', preventing editors with opposing views from improving the articles, and enforcing your will on them using the same old cop-out mantra of "go read the RfC and Jagged 85 cleanup before coming back here" (and similar such comments). But you're right about one thing: My main issue really is just the tags, which violate WP:NPA and WP:WITCHHUNT (and possibly WP:NOR, but I'm willing to let that one slide for now).
And that's all for now. Jagged 85 ( talk) 15:05, 27 August 2012 (UTC) reply
If you're so keen on NPA, how about you drop the claims of "spiteful" edits, for which you have no evidence at all? William M. Connolley ( talk) 21:06, 27 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Anyway, I'm done. I'm feeling a little lazy right now, so I can't be bothered to pursue this matter any further. I'll leave the tag as is for now, and maybe raise the issue again some time in the near future. Jagged 85 ( talk) 19:00, 27 August 2012 (UTC) reply

I am disappointed. A quick summary for future reference.
  1. NPA The tags are aimed at content not at you. If you feel you are being attacked report it.
  2. WP:Witchhunt deals with bring up past behavior out off context.
  3. WP:NOR deals with encyclopedia contents.

I find it disturbing that you now seem to endorse an agenda of "anti-eurocentric boosterism". (an agenda you denied at the RFC)

I'm going to leave a warning for Edit Waring on Jagged's talk page for the record.
Cheers J8079s ( talk) 00:52, 28 August 2012 (UTC) reply
The discussion already ended yesterday and the "edit war" already ended two days ago. What a useless "warning"... And for the record:
  1. The tag is called Template:Jagged 85 shortened, so yeah, it is aimed at me.
  2. Here's what WP:Witchhunt states: "Some editors may be concerned that another's activities may not conform to Wikipedia guidelines, and may become so obsessed with that possibility that they go to the extremes of studying the edit histories of others very deeply as if they were detectives conducting a homicide investigation. One who engages in this type of behavior misses the point as to what Wikipedia is really all about." In other words, it means this entire project, not just the tag.
  3. Like I already said above, "I'm willing to let that one slide for now."
And no, you clearly misunderstood. What I'm saying is this entire "Jagged 85 cleanup" project is just an excuse for "Eurocentric boosterism."
Seriously, I wasn't even going to come back here until you tweeted me those pointless "warnings". Now that that's done and dusted, I'll be off now. Jagged 85 ( talk) 07:51, 28 August 2012 (UTC) reply
The evidence at WT:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Cleanup conclusively shows that Jagged 85 has made many edits that involve the undue promotion of Islamic and other non-European scholarship and achievements, and that there has been a severe misuse of sources: misrepresenting what a source has asserted; reporting only one side from a source; quoting out of context; inventing claims using a source related to the topic but which does not verify the claim. Commentary about the name of a template should come after acknowledging the underlying problem, and without unsubstantiated claims of "Eurocentric boosterism". Johnuniq ( talk) 08:26, 28 August 2012 (UTC) reply
The counter claim (that his was a Good Faith effort to improve wikipedia albeit, at times, incompetent [16]) was also accepted by some. The RFC was closed by agreement.

When you have time,address the name of the template as a single issue. J8079s ( talk) 21:03, 28 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Wow! Why is the community still putting up with this clownery? It has been doubtlessly shown that this user, Jagged85, has intentionally misused all sorts of sources to promote an Islamocentric view on, well, just about anything in history, on numerous articles. And now he has the nerve to come back around and claim he has been victimized? I was flabbergasted that he was not banned for his original abuse. Then he refused to assist in cleaning the immense mess up. Then various Islamocentric editors came around and attempted to slow down any acknowledgement of Wikipedia policies. And now this? Seriously, someone do us all a favor and get the perma-ban hammer out and use it. All things considered, if there's ever a user I've seen that deserves a permanent ban from the project, it's Jagged85. :bloodofox: ( talk) 00:04, 29 August 2012 (UTC) reply
Probably no need to worry. Jagged85 was just trying his luck. Having discovered that the same objections exist, I think he's gone away again William M. Connolley ( talk)

List of Japanese inventions

May need some support there. Somebody restored the problematic version in April 2012 because he found it "more informative" which I interpret as horror vacui (better have something however weird filling the void than having nothing). Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 22:45, 29 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Video game genres

I'm not too familiar with the history and content of this saga, but I did notice someone state that "No issues outside of Islamic science topics have been identified, as far as I'm aware." So I'm just dropping this notice that video game genre articles - and going by this, likely wider video game articles - are affected. I've had issues with Jagged85's edits to these articles since as far back as 2009, but over the last couple of years he added such an overwhelming amount of stuff neither I nor anyone else was able to continually double check it. I recently answered a talk page complaint at the first-person shooter article, which resulted in the removal of a swathe of Jagged85's content. I've been going through the article the last couple of days and have removed a tonne of further content, the vast majority of it, I've no doubt, Jagged85's (dozens of diffs already, see history). I and others have noted similar issues in other genre articles and I've little doubt they'll be similarly prevalent when I get round to going through them.

The MO should be familiar: misrepresentation of sources; taking a partially verifiable claim and sticking his own opinion/research into the same cited sentence; original synthesis; and when he does contribute a valid claim sometimes it's plagiarised. Using the first-person shooter article as an example: typically he'll find a source calling an irrelevant game a "first-person shooter" (often just in an infobox or similar, with no commentary) then find other sources detailing its importance to some other topic (3D game engines, or role-playing genres, as examples I've come across) with no reference to "first-person shooter" - let alone its history - and write up a paragraph implying the game is important to the history of FPS (when no source has said anything of the sort). Other times - for more minor games with little to no influence on anything - he'll just puff up innocuous gameplay descriptions to imply these were innovative or influential (when again the source has not said that). And sometimes just complete irrelevance or apparent invention with the statement not matching anything said in the source. bridies ( talk) 05:54, 4 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Oh for goodness' sake. Can we establish support for a community ban now? Or at the very least, heavy editing restrictions. E.g. don't make any edits to an article without discussing it on the Talk page first.
I never understood why he wasn't banned for all the Islamic stuff, especially as sock puppeting was involved at one point. If he's doing much the same thing again in a different topic area, and looking at your links it certainly looks like it, then surely we have to stop it right now. It's like a cancer, the way overblown and inaccurate claims which are cited using misrepresented sources are being spread through the encyclopedia. At least with badly written and and uncited Start class articles it's obvious that claims need to be taken with a pinch of salt. What's scary about Jagged's edits is that they look plausible and are referenced, but far too often the information is just flat out wrong. I think it seriously harms the credibility of the entire project. People will be for years quoting that the NES was the "first" console with hardware scrolling (does anyone familiar with this project spot a pattern here?) if it's not stopped now.
To put this in context, I don't think I've ever called for a community ban of anyone. But surely a line has to be drawn. -- Merlinme ( talk) 08:51, 4 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I missed the original RfC, was unaware of the Islamic history stuff, and was unaware this editor was so exasperating to so many others. I always assumed him to be editing in good faith but just chronically incompetent - and over-eager to cover older or lesser known-games - and so my eyebrows were raised at all this stuff about him pushing a pro-Islamic POV. And conversely, from his side, the notion that his detractors are "Eurocentric" and anti-Islam. Not sure what heinous agenda he's pushing in puffing up RPGs and old spaceship games in the FPS article; or what POV I'm pushing in opposing it! But unless the rest of his sizeable "contributions" to the genre articles turn out to be miraculously different from what I've already seen, I'd support a topic ban on the articles I'm familiar with, at an absolute minimum. I suppose I'd have to go back over the articles' history, check he added what I'm removing and that no one else modified the claims so that they ended up different from what the source says. I really struggle to see that latter possibility being likely however, given the extent of the problem and the fact that content I've added has generally gone unchanged for years. And further given at least one other video game editor has identified him as problematic (see the link above). bridies ( talk) 10:33, 4 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Here's a diff showing a large amount of content added during a few days in May 2011, which I believe illustrates Jagged85 added as-is a lot of the stuff I've been removing (the intermediate users I don't think added much of significance; some one could easily check these dates himself):

  • It includes at least some of the old arcade space games that I removed some months ago, detailing the reasons on the talk page. We're talking 2 or 3 paragraphs of original synthesis.
  • A bit wary of this since it involves google-translate-from-Japanese, but: I'm fairly sure there is no mention of Star Cruiser being a "first-person shooter", just an "action-RPG" and discussion about what a good one it was. Nothing to support: it being "an early first-person shooter [...] that introduced the use of fully 3D polygonal graphics, action RPG elements, and free-roaming open space exploration allowing six degrees of freedom." At best this addition untenably implies that this action-RPG "introduced" these various things to the genre of FPS. At worst it's completely irrelevant and it misrepresents the source either way.
  • It includes the mention that "Metal Gear Solid: Integral]] included a first-person mode that allowed the whole game to be played from a first-person perspective." Metal Gear Solid, not being considered an FPS by the source or by anyone (it's a stealth action adventure), dumping this mention in the history section of the FPS section implies that it was a noteworthy genre-blending (or at least noteworthy somehow, as "this game has an FPS mode" is otherwise redundant). What the source says is that this "first person mode" is a bonus feature and a poor one at that. The claim that it "allowed the whole game to be played from a first-person perspective" is not in the source: it's not really clear but the source says "It also reverts back to the normal perspective after every transitional screen, making switching back to first-person view an annoyance." Factually true or not, this is taken out of context from a game review with no wider reference to FPSs and the wording is such that it hams up the unsupported notion that this bonus unlock of one game is worthy of note.
  • It includes the multiple claims of Gun Buster's uniqueness not supported by the source; ditto claims that it's multiplayer mode is " an early example of a team deathmatch". Less glaringly, this is an example of Jagged85 writing lengthly gameplay descriptions into a history section to imply importance. The source has only the unqualified statement that it's "An extremely innovative first-person shooter" (and which I left in, fair 'nuff) and the gameplay description. No claims that the mechanics were "unique" and no mention of "team deathmatch". Diff of my removal of this
  • Golgo 13 was one of Jagged85's partially viable additions, but the source doesn't say it had "first-person shooter levels" (just "first-person maze exploration"); and doesn't say it "introduced" the sniper rifle, merely that was it was "one of the first games" to make more accurate shooting more powerful; borderline (just a few words) plagiarism of "unsteady sniper scope". diff of my change
  • Includes the claim that Super Spy is a "first-person shooter with beat 'em up elements" and was "significant". Again, this is an example of dropping innocuous gameplay description into a history section to imply importance or influence, but it's not even supported by the sources (which are here and here). Neither source calls it a first-person shooter (merely mentioning its first-person perspective), they don't call it "significant" and they don't compare it to Doom or Wolfenstein. That's all Jagged85's commentary. He later reduced the claim to the fact that the gun is sometimes visible on screen, and his own assertion that this is "notable".
  • The Silent Debuggers claim and it's source is an examplar of a redundant gameplay snippet with no historical or critical commentary inserted into the history section.

And like I said, this is a not-exhaustive summary of a partial copy-edit of one of the genre articles over the last couple of days... bridies ( talk) 12:08, 4 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Thanks for the information. I don't have time to look at anything now, but this has to be done correctly: multiple people will need to check and agree that evidence shows a significant problem. Bad results occur when a report is taken to WP:ANI prematurely—really good evidence is needed first, with a few clear cases that onlookers can understand. See some of the evidence pages linked here—a few significant examples of new problems would be needed before taking any action.
I can produce a summary of changes to an article by a user (it shows the result of several consecutive edits as a single diff— example here where 60 edits are shown as 29 diffs) [that last link is not going to the right section when the page opens, for some reason; it's the "Misuse of sources" section]. If that is of any value, please let me know. Johnuniq ( talk) 12:24, 4 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I recommend that we Ban Jagged85 immediately. This is over long due. Repeal all of his edits. Then do the same to any other editor who happens to pop up and behave in this manner. :bloodofox: ( talk) 15:26, 4 September 2012 (UTC) reply
If Bridies complaint stands up, then I agree: bad Jagged85 William M. Connolley ( talk) 17:42, 4 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • I also note some of these claims are duplicated in First-person (video games), to which Jagged85 is the top of few contributors, and to which he's now inserting "see also" links rather than include the claims directly in the FPS article. Ditto links to the "Role-playing shooter" section of Action role-playing game (Jagged is top contributor to that article with 326 edits). Sigh. bridies ( talk) 05:46, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Recent samples

Johnuniq stated that "significant" and "new" evidence should be highlighted. So here I will leave anything I feel matches that description as I go. Another editor with more experience of the RfC might look it over to consider whether it's worth putting into a more formal page, and how best to present it. I'll try to put clear exemplars here, but while Jagged85 has certainly added whole paragraphs of miles-off content in the past, as Merlinme noted often the problem is reams of slightly-twisted statements which might ordinarily be forgiven as honest misinterpretation; but given the systemic extent of the problem, cannot be in Jagged85's case.

  • At a recent FAC on another genre article, I pointed out a claim that "Dragonstomper, also from 1982, was the earliest role-playing video game produced for a console, the Atari 2600." I checked the source and found that (pasting my FAC comment) it first says: "What was the first console RPG? Accounts vary, but most fingers point to Enix's Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior in the US)" but then quotes fellow GameSpot journalist Joe Fielder opining Dragon Stomper is the first. And then it says: "A devoted gamer could make a decent case for either of these Atari titles founding the RPG genre; nevertheless, there's no denying that Dragon Quest was the primary catalyst for the Japanese console RPG industry". If that's not clear: the author says that "most" consider the better known Dragon Quest to be the first console RPG, but then mentions his colleague has a unique, different opinion, citing the lesser known, earlier Dragon Stomper; before going on to state that nevertheless the better known game was more influential. Both claims are valid and noteworthy. But what made it into the article was the it's-a-fact statement that "The earliest role-playing video game on a console was [...] Dragonstomper on the Atari 2600." That is the lesser known game credited by a single journalist (not the author of the source but his colleague!) in opposition to "most" others. The poor nominator stated this was Jagged85's contribution and lo and behold: here it is. He even included quotes pertinent to the game he neglected into the ref (but not the prose, that being the issue). This is from Dec 2011, not exactly "new", but well after the results of the RfC - if I'm not mistaken - and it contributed to the failure of an FAC last month. His last edit to this article was 2 days ago.
  • Above, I complained about this claim: Star Cruiser, an early first-person shooter,[ref] [...] was an innovative game that introduced the use of fully 3D polygonal graphics, action RPG elements, and free-roaming open space exploration allowing six degrees of freedom.[ref] Given its context in the History section of the FPS article, saying "introduced" implies "introduced to the genre". This was added in May 2011 (see above) but a day or two ago he reinstated the above claims, saying "actually, there is a source calling it a first-person shooter". This source calls it a First-Person Shooter, yes, in an infobox, with no article, no commentary, nothing. All the other claims regarding Star Cruiser come from this: even allowing for the translation, this is just a discussion of it as an RPG. It does say it had "3D action" elements, but does not mention first-person shooters, let alone any influence on or importance to the genre, or that it "introduced" or was an "early" example of anything. Aside, he also reinstated dubious claims pertinent to another game in this edit, not mentioning it in the edit summary. bridies ( talk) 07:29, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • In May 2011 he also added a description of Super Spy to the history section of the FPS article, along with commentary not found in the sources he cited ( [17] and [18]): that it was "significant", that it was "a first-person shooter with beat 'em up elements" (or that it was an FPS at all) and comparisons to Doom and Wolfenstein (the implications being that it was somehow influential on these later games and thus the FPS genre). I removed this, but a day or two ago he reinstated a much-toned down statement which nevertheless claimed its mechanics as "notable", not supported by the sources. bridies ( talk) 08:02, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • I am also active on wikipedia video game articles, and over the past year, I have also had a large number of run-ins with Jagged 85 (edit: actually, now that I read more closely, I see that Bridies has linked to a previous statement I made about this problem to a fellow editor some months back, and I certainly still endorse the comments I made at that time). Some of the most egregious edits I have reverted include using one clearly mistaken source to change an article when that source is contradicted by every other reliable source out there [19] [20] (all reliable accounts point to 1980 release); citing to a source for information not contained within that source [21] (Source says Pac Man sold 350,000 units but does not claim those were US sales alone) [22] (Source gives a few sales figures to put Xanadu in context, but does not make best-seller claim) [23] (source discusses the importance of scrolling and the fact that the NES is capable of hardware scrolling, but does not claim that the NES was the first console with hardware scrolling, which is inaccurate); and misrepresenting info in sources [24] (Uses a Retro Gamer article to give 2 million SMS sales in Brazil, but article states that Tec Toy sold 2 million systems by 1996, meaning SMS, Genesis, and Saturn) [25] [26] (This one is really bizarre and happens in two parts. In the first edit, he adds a claim of 200,000 units in sales in two weeks and fastest-selling game ever with a Crash magazine article as reference. I tracked down that article, and it just discusses the merits of the arcade game with no mention of the home versions or sales at all. In the second edit, he adds a second magazine source to back up those claims, but that article says the game sold 200,000 copies in "two minutes" not two weeks, making it a figure of speech, and then says this makes it "just about" the fastest selling game ever, so it is not actually making a claim to speed of sell though). This is just a small sample of the edits I have had to revert. In the interest of fairness, I believe that overall he does a better job of discussing things on the talk page than he used to and has not made as many poor-quality edits as he was making a few months ago. He has also made a few edits of extremely high quality to video game articles including having a hand in uncovering some new information relating to Sega Master System sales figures, so he has not been all bad. Still, the pattern is worrisome. Indrian ( talk) 18:28, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Well, *Sigh* I didn't think I'd come back here so soon, but before any of this spirals out of control, I'll need to correct Bridies on a few points:

1. Regarding Dragonstomper, it was previously already present in the History of RPG article before the merger split. All I did is replicate the information in the Western RPG article. The fact of the matter is, though, that Dragonstomper is the first RPG on a console. Just because several other sources that don't know about its existence credit Dragon Quest as the first console RPG, it would be false to claim Dragon Quest is the first console RPG when it has been predated. At best, Dragon Quest is the first in the "console RPG" genre, or the first Japanese console RPG, but there's nothing incorrect about Dragonstomper being the first RPG on a console.

2. Okay, Star Cruiser is a first-person shooter, and it featured 3D polygon graphics. Nothing I said contradicted the sources I've cited, nor did I explicitly imply a position that neither source advances. I think the main issue you seem to have is whether or not its relevant to the history of first-person shooters. You seem to think that just by mere inclusion in the article, that I'm somehow implying its "historically important", which, as I've already stated in that article's talk page, was never my intention.

3. I did not add any comparisons of Super Spy to Doom and Wolfenstein. All I did mention is that it shows the hands and weapons, but it was a different user (I don't quite remember who) that elaborated on my edit and added Doom and Wolfenstein as a comparison.

As for the examples cited by Indrian... Regarding the most "bizarre" example, concerning the Out Run sales, I was looking at two different magazines, with one saying "two weeks" and the other saying "two minutes", so I ended up confusing the two and citing the wrong article, which I later corrected (after Indrian pointed out the error). The several other examples posted by Indrian, I kind of agree with I did make an error of judgement with those... but that doesn't really prove anything about any "abuse" or "misuse" of sources like what others have been claiming. Also, I appreciate that Indrian has remained neutral and pointed out some of my positive contributions.

Jagged 85 ( talk) 19:58, 5 September 2012 (UTC) Also, one more thing: I'm currently planning on staying away from video game genre articles for now until this is all cleared up (besides maybe minor edits at most). I can't be arsed to be getting into any edit wars right now. Jagged 85 ( talk) 22:46, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't wish to carry on content disputes on multiple pages, so I'll leave this for now. But from Jagged85's own defence, I think these statements alone are pretty telling: "Dragonstomper is the first RPG on a console. Just [...] several other sources that don't know"; the notion that he is adding content "relevant to the history of first-person shooters" while simultaneously not at all "implying its [sic] 'historically important'" (and that's merely the revised claims, not the old statements which explicitly invented claims such as "significant", "unique", "notable", etc.); and "Nothing I said contradicted the sources I've cited, nor did I explicitly imply a position that neither source advances" (He implied it, but he didn't "explicitly imply" it! Perfectly OK!). bridies ( talk) 02:52, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Okay bridies, let me ask you this: If you think I'm trying to "systemically" "abuse" or "misuse" sources, what possible reason could I have for doing it? Above, you yourself already made it clear you don't know what possible 'heinous agenda' I might have, yet you think I'm trying to systematically misuse sources? How in the hell can a 'pro-Islam POV' have anything to do with video games? The only things I can think of that come close are games like Prince of Persia or Assassin's Creed... yet do you ever remember me trying to promote games like these anywhere on Wikipedia? Maybe a pro-Japanese POV? But then again, you're very well aware I've added content on Western games, too (which you seem to think I'm promoting by 'misusing' sources). Maybe a bias towards old-school games? But then again, you're very well aware I've added content on many modern games, too (like that whole section you chopped off in the FPS article). You have no idea what kind of 'agenda' I'm trying to promote, yet you think I'm 'misusing sources' over some unknown agenda? You sound confused, dude.
Secondly, refer to Talk:Shoot 'em up#Regarding the scrolling and parallax claims, where back in January 2011 you had a somewhat similar dispute with Marty Goldberg. There, as a neutral party, I already made my position very clear: "Can't we simply avoid stating opinions about which was "the first", but instead simply state the facts like "game x from the year y was an early example of mechanic z"? In that way, we can let the reader deduce for themselves which game had a certain mechanic before the other, especially when there are several different claimants." You didn't seem to have a problem with it back then, but I've more or less been continuing this pattern since. However, during that discussion, I've noticed a disturbing trend coming from you: Stating information from sources as facts even if you know it's false (which, like Marty pointed out back then, can easily be confirmed through playing the games or watching videos online). In fact, that's more or less what you've been suggesting here with Dragonstomper, where you believe we should go with the several sources giving false information about Dragon Quest being the first console RPG instead of the one source giving the correct information about Dragonstomper being the first console RPG. All I'm trying to do is stick with the facts that we can easily confirm, whereas you seem to be more concerned with sticking with popular (even if mythical) opinions.
And finally, I'm still not sure what you mean by "historically important". It seems to me that the only "historically important" games to you are the influential ones, which is where I completely disagree with you. If a game makes an original contribution that's relevant to the genre, then it's notable, regardless of whether it's a failed experiment or influenced anything after it. If you think that's "original synthesis" (a claim I feel you've been misusing a lot), then I'll just refer back to what User:Guyinblack25 stated during that same shoot 'em up discussion in January 2011: "Depending on the source content, I think some synthesis is allowed to maintain accuracy absent from the source. [...] In this specific case, limited synthesis might be called for because of the abstract nature of the topic (a genre rather than a game). But the history section should try to avoid this as much as possible."
Jagged 85 ( talk) 15:43, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Personally, I've been happy to assume good faith and believe the reason to be gross incompetence. Other video game editors seem to think you're undeservedly including games you happen to like. I really don't care if there's an agenda or not, or what it might be, and given your responses here, I'm continuing to think it's caused by a complete lack of understanding of basic policy.: the fact remains you are making systemically bad edits based on the misuse of sources. That old discussion is laughably irrelevant: we were dealing with an explicit claim of historical importance in that source, the issue was that some editors thought it was inaccurate. Your massive original synthesis of redundant claims do not fit Guyinblack's notion of "limited synthesis" of explicit claims of importance. I didn't think that comment of yours was problematic then? You must have missed my response, which was: To answer Jagged85's original question: if one simply states that Game X contains mechanic Y in a genre history article, one nevertheless implies that it is important to that history and this in turn demands sourced justification. Sound familiar? Regarding your last paragraph, you are not adding verifiable claims that "a game makes an original contribution that's relevant to the genre", that's the issue. And again you are proving my point that these innocuous additions are implicit claims of this or that game being "original" or "notable". And since you want to keep at the RPG issue: no, genre definitions are heavily subjective. AS I said on that FAC, commentators made that call by looking at things like the fantasy setting, the quest structure and deciding if it fit their idea of an RPG. Most commentators chose the later game, one chose the earlier claim; you added the one claim as a fact (or if we believe your explanation here, another editor added it to another article and you plagiarised it). bridies ( talk) 16:07, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

All right, there's both my and Jagged85's opinion on both those edits and wider policy. I'm happy to agree to disagree on both and pursue these content disputes no further here. bridies ( talk) 16:21, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Fair enough. Truce accepted. (See my talk page for the rest of my comment.) Regards, Jagged 85 ( talk) 20:01, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply
In other words, Jagged85 admittedly is doing here exactly what he has been doing so infamously elsewhere. And he's still allowed to edit why exactly? :bloodofox: ( talk) 20:54, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply
It looks like someone hasn't been paying attention. Let me paraphrase: "If you think I'm trying to "systemically" "abuse" or "misuse" sources, what possible reason could I have for doing it? Above, you yourself already made it clear you don't know what possible 'heinous agenda' I might have, yet you think I'm trying to systematically misuse sources? How in the hell can a 'pro-Islam POV' have anything to do with video games? The only things I can think of that come close are games like Prince of Persia or Assassin's Creed... yet do you ever remember me trying to promote games like these anywhere on Wikipedia? Maybe a pro-Japanese POV? But then again, you're very well aware I've added content on Western games, too (which you seem to think I'm promoting by 'misusing' sources). Maybe a bias towards old-school games? But then again, you're very well aware I've added content on many modern games, too (like that whole section you chopped off in the FPS article). You have no idea what kind of 'agenda' I'm trying to promote, yet you think I'm 'misusing sources' over some unknown agenda?" Whatever you think my so-called 'agenda' is regarding this particular topic (video games), I don't see any reason to waste my time responding to allegations from someone I've never even met before. If Bridies (or Indrian, for that matter) has any issues with me, I am more than willing to discuss it with him elsewhere. This will probably be my last response in this page for a while, so don't mind if I don't bother responding to whatever else you may have to say. That's all for now, so adios! Jagged 85 ( talk) 02:38, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Your "agenda", as far as I can tell Jagged, is to make claims in Wikipedia that something is the first, most important, earliest, was highly significant, etc. etc., even though this claim is not backed up by a source which you've quoted. A fairly typical approach which I've seen is that you will reference a hard to check source which says that X is a Y, which you've then used as a source in Wikipedia supporting the claim that X is the first Y, which is a serious abuse of sources and seriously misleading. In one example I'm aware of you used an article which mentioned Ibn Sina once and discussed machines and ingenious devices in a completely different context to support your text in Wikipedia that "Ibn Sina invented levers and ingenious devices". Compare your edit saying the NES was the "first" console to feature hardware scrolling, when all the source said was that it had hardware scrolling. Or, your edit adding "unique" to claims about Gun Buster gameplay, when the source said "extremely innovative". You also repeatedly and indiscriminately use sources which support your viewpoint but which are in fact minority views and contradicted by other sources; compare your edit which changed a correct date of 1980 for the Atari 2600 Space Invaders version to 1978, despite the fact this is contradicted by other sources, with e.g. your edits relying on Makdisi's suggestion that the English jury system might have derived from an Islamic source, which as far as I'm aware has no support from any other source. This is then exacerbated by duplicating the dubious claims in dozens of places, and generally making so many edits that it takes other editors many hours to check them.
So no there isn't a problem with Islamic POV pushing in your computer game edits, but there is a very similar problem with abusing sources. And if you still haven't learned, after all this time, and if you are still spreading your false information through the encyclopedia, and still don't apparently even think you're doing anything wrong, then I think it's time for a community ban. -- Merlinme ( talk) 13:04, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply
No, you're either just twisting the facts to suit your POV, or, at best, simply ignorant of the issue at hand. Go read the earlier version of the article History of video game consoles (third generation) (before the stuff on hardware scrolling was removed) and nowhere did I ever say "first" anywhere. Either you're just just making that up or don't know what you're talking about. If you've been following the dispute between myself and Bridies above, I already stated back in January 2011: "Can't we simply avoid stating opinions about which was "the first", but instead simply state the facts like "game x from the year y was an early example of mechanic z"? In that way, we can let the reader deduce for themselves which game had a certain mechanic before the other, especially when there are several different claimants." As for Gun Buster, are you seriously complaining about me toning down the claim in the original source ("extremely innovative") to something less sensational ("unique")? Sorry, but this is just getting ridiculous. I don't know who you are, but I think it's about time I stop wasting my time responding to false accusations from strangers I've never even met before. Good bye. Jagged 85 ( talk) 14:27, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Ok, what is this edit: [27], added by Jagged_85 with comment "added paragraph on scrolling"? The paragraph includes the sentence: "While scrolling had been present in various arcade games in the early 1980s, it was not introduced to consoles until the third generation, with the 1983 release of the NES, the first console to feature hardware scrolling." So did you or did you not add a claim about "first" which was not present in the cited source?
I'm not sure what is scarier, that you make so many of these edits that you don't realise you are adding overblown claims not supported by the source, or that you are doing it deliberately and hoping that if you're vigorous enough in your denial of everything that it will all blow over. Either way there is a serious problem, and one that the original Request For Comment does not appear to have to solved. Maybe you aren't making quite such blatantly false edits, such as making up an entire paragraph on Avicenna's inventions in engineering using a hard-to-check source which barely mentions Avicenna, but there is still a serious problem with you making edits which make strong claims like "unique" or "first" which simply aren't in the cited source.
As to who I am, I'm someone who I'd estimate has spent > 100 hours sorting out the misinformation and indiscriminate edits you made to articles such as Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe and Avicenna. It took me about six months to sort out Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe, so I am very familiar with some of the issues with edits you've made previously. -- Merlinme ( talk) 15:13, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply
OK, it seems I did mention "first" after all. Nice digging there, because I certainly didn't remember it until now (unless you think I'm 'lying' of course). Even if I did make that edit, it still contradicts what I stated just a few weeks prior to that edit: "Can't we simply avoid stating opinions about which was "the first", but instead simply state the facts like "game x from the year y was an early example of mechanic z"? In that way, we can let the reader deduce for themselves which game had a certain mechanic before the other, especially when there are several different claimants." Again, do you think I was 'lying' when I said that? Like I said above, that's more or less the pattern I was following at the time with video game articles. If there are any edits that diverged from that pattern and claimed "first", then it's either because the source itself claimed it was first or, in rare occurrences, because I made an error of judgement (or may have been in a rush). Either way, there isn't a pattern of me always claiming "firsts" in my work on video games, so your accusations still hold little water.
As for my past edits on Islamic civilization articles which you like to dwell on so much, no, I'm not claiming I never did anything wrong back then, but like I stated at ArbCom, whatever errors I made back then were the exception, not the norm like what the RfC was claiming. In addition, regarding the examples presented against me at the 2010 RfC, the vast majority of those examples used were from around 2007-2008 (when I was relatively new to Wikipedia), with very few examples from around 2009-2010. Whether or not you refuse to acknowledge it, I'll repeat what I said back at that 2011 ArbCom case: those examples presented at the 2010 RfC were clearly cherry-picked to present me in the worst light possible, as if these examples (most of which were very old even by that time) were the norm rather than the exception.
As for your work on those articles, I'm not too familiar with your work, but in a way, I'm glad you've been trying to clean up those articles (and even those were articles I mostly edited around 2008-ish) instead of just lazily deleting/stubbing them like what several editors have been doing (which of course became a source of contention at ArbCom last year).
Anyway, I know it's probably futile trying to convince the folks here that I'm not part of some conspiracy out to destroy Wikipedia, but everything I've said and done on Wikipedia has been in good faith, regardless of whether you choose to believe it or not. Take it or leave it, that's all I have to say.
Jagged 85 ( talk) 22:59, 8 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Note would appear to be Jagged's usual response when caught red-handed, frequent as it is; downplay the numerous examples presented as "exceptions" and "cherry-picked", accuse others of assuming bad faith or a "conspiracy", comment that, hey, it's all in the past anyway, and, finally, tell them that if they don't like it, they can just take a hike.
But I have to admit that it takes quite some backbone to refer to those who have attempted to clean up after oneself as "lazy"! That's a new one by me. :bloodofox: ( talk) 00:24, 9 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Assuming good faith, Jagged, I'll take it that you didn't notice at the time that you'd incorrectly claimed the NES was first to use hardware scrolling, and couldn't remember having made the edit when I asked about it. That's the most charitable assumption I can make, and I still find it really, really scary. This was a 2011 edit; how many other careless edits have you made in the last couple of years which make claims of fact which are simply untrue, and you apparently can't even remember making? Are we supposed to check every single edit you make, to confirm that you haven't made any more careless claims? That particular edit stood until 22nd January 2012, i.e. for almost exactly a year, until Indrian reverted it with the comment "This is nonsense...the Atari 5200 had hardware scrolling before the Famicom, as did Atari's 8-bit computers and the C64". How many other edits have you made with incorrect claims that have not been corrected because other editors didn't notice or didn't know enough to contradict an apparently referenced claim? We can't carry on like this. Badly cited, factually incorrect information undermines the basis of the whole project. If referenced claims are routinely incorrect, Wikipedia cannot be trusted. -- Merlinme ( talk) 08:55, 10 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Is it time to take formal action against Jagged_85?

I was just looking at this: Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Jagged_85#Summary:

Jagged 85 agrees that the edits collected as evidence for this RfC/U are indeed unacceptable and that he will avoid repeating anything like that again.

He has continued to make strong claims based on sources which do not make those claims. E.g. he claimed in January 2011, nine months after the RFC closed, that the NES was the first console to introduce hardware scrolling.

Jagged 85 agrees to undertake a systematic programme of correcting any errors that they have inserted into Wikipedia articles.

He does not seem to have done this.

taking care to cite precisely the source that has been consulted and where in that source the supporting material is to found

We could examine this in more detail but in the example I looked at from January 2011, above, he did not link to the correct page which would support the claim that the NES was the first console with hardware scrolling, he linked to a different page in the same fairly large article. Any strong claim should be given a precise page reference. In this case a precise link would have made it immediately obvious that the article did not support the claim that the NES was the first console with hardware scrolling.

discussing any controversial edits on article talk pages before making them

This could be examined in more detail.

watching the pages that they have recently edited, and their talk pages, and responding to comments there in accordance with WP:BRD

This could be examined in more detail.

avoiding any questionable, inappropriate and unreliable sources, and in particular, avoiding edits which add exceptional claims, unless these have received strong confirmation from several reliable sources.

This could be examined in more detail, but based on the evidence I've seen above, he's still making strong claims ("first", "unique", "significant") which are simply not in the sources he cites. In other cases he's used bad sources to make claims that are not supported by better sources (e.g. 1978 date of Atari 2600 version of Space Invaders, the recently reinstated Star Cruiser claim that it's a First-Person Shooter), which seems to be in clear violation of this point.

Jagged 85 agrees to follow through his commitment to this process and he understands that, if such problematic behaviour were to occur again, further action will be taken against him. Such an action would be a request for some sort of ban.

Surely if he's in violation of most of these points then it's time to discuss some sort of a ban? My point is that the original RFC had clear standards which Jagged was to be kept to, and enforcement if he did not keep to them. As far I can see he has not kept to them, but has simply transported his highly damaging editing style from Islamic subjects to computer games, leaving those computer articles full of factually incorrect claims which are not supported by the references he's used. I therefore think it's time to discuss formal action, as per the original RFC. -- Merlinme ( talk) 07:36, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Agreed. :bloodofox: ( talk) 12:32, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply
It depends. While it is technically possible that any group of editors can request formal action like a community ban, it would need for practical reasons the editors active in video games to take the initiative and collect the necessary diffs which demonstrate the outlined problematic edit pattern. Only these users have the necessary insight and overview to judge how big the negative impact has been in their field of work. Once this process has been started, us users from the first RFC/U on history- and science-related articles could move into a supportive or even leading role, but not before.
To put it bluntly: I have spent a similarly gross amount of time cleaning up the mess as you, Merlinme, and I am not interested in spending even more time in taking the lead and shouldering the work load of cleaning up a part of Wikipedia which I almost never read or edit. If the computer games editors think they can still live with it, then I can live with it too. If they think they cannot and present sufficient evidence for a violation of the RFC/U agreement, then I believe there is enough reason to proceed with a ban of some sort as the next logical step. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 12:50, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Guys, as I have tried to indicate: it takes time to investigate and to write up even a mere sampling of the stuff we're talking about here. But had I done that, what would you have me do exactly? You want an evidence page (and where?) first, or a full ANI? I know the lead has to come from a VG editor, but humour me considering I've no experience with a community/talk space issue of anything like this size. bridies ( talk) 13:07, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply

I was looking into this myself bridies; I've never really taken on a community issue of this size either. We don't however have to do it all at once, and I think that in fact most of it has been done already, based on the links you've previously given. We can take it all a step at a time. You could take a look at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Jagged_85/Evidence for an example of how to put the evidence into a formal form. You could also take a look at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Jagged_85#Evidence_of_failing_to_resolve_the_dispute for examples of trying to deal with it on Talk pages (although given the sheer number of edits Jagged makes, and the difficulty for other editors to check every single one, I'm not sure this is relevant unless Jagged agrees to get approval for all non-trivial edits on Talk pages before making the edit).
I am so fed up with the current situation that, unlike Gun Powder Ma, I am prepared to put a significant amount of my time into getting a proper resolution this time (and this is in no way an attack on Gun Powder Ma; I should point out I did not spend dozens of hours of my time bringing the first RFC, whereas Gun Powder Ma was heavily involved).
I also don't personally think the burden of proof is as high with this process as with the original RFC. It has previously been established that Jagged has a highly problematic editing style, especially with regard to "referenced" exceptional claims which turn out not to be supported by the references. I am of course in the process of consensus building on this, but my personal belief is that all we need to demonstrate this time round is that he has violated the terms on which the RFC was closed, and it is therefore appropriate to discuss formal action, as per that RFC. -- Merlinme ( talk) 13:59, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I think I'm good with regards to evidence and how to format it; I'm more confused about the actual proposed process: where to put any new "evidence" pages, how the AN/I should be worded, and so forth. bridies ( talk) 14:10, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I have been working on this as well. The examples I posted on this page are not isolated incidents, and I have prepared a list of similar problematic edits that I can add to any evidence pages that emerge. I honestly do not see the agenda problems that Jagged apparently exhibited with Islamic articles, and I think he is more careful with sourcing than he used to be. However, his MO of making dozens of small edits a day across a group of articles based on one or two sources that he has often not read correctly or failed to cross-reference with other material is problematic. This is especially the case in a field like video game history in which the scholarship is underdeveloped so there are really no good "standard" sources to fall back on. It takes a certain level of care and awareness to edit video game history articles properly, and I feel that Jagged has not shown that level of care much of the time. Anyway, I am ready to go if and when someone wants to initiate a formal process. Indrian ( talk) 14:50, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Indrian, for repeated insertion of false or careless claims you could use this format from Invention of ventilators: Note: The claim has also been included by the user in:
When I posted earlier this day, I still was not sure about the willingness of bridies and Indrian to go ahead with formal procedures, but now seeing their effort collecting the evidence, I am certainly willing to help out wherever I can. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 15:38, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Ok, I've made a Bold edit and created the page Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Computer Games Evidence. Please add entries there. If it's the wrong place, it should be easy enough to simply transfer the evidence to a new page. -- Merlinme ( talk) 15:48, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Sounds good. I will begin adding what I have there. This is going to take awhile, especially for those edits where I have to cross-reference edits made across multiple pages, but hopefully by the end of the weekend things should be in decent shape on my end. Indrian ( talk) 17:09, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply
That would be great, thanks. Let me know if you want any help with anything. -- Merlinme ( talk) 17:55, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Thanks, I am starting to put the info on, so you can check my progress on the page you created. Feel free to point out/correct any grammar or formatting errors or anything that seems hard to follow. I imagine Bridies will start adding evidence to this page at some point to, though I have no idea what his timetable will be. Indrian ( talk) 18:51, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Looks good, I might do a bit of copy editing at some point.
Personally, speaking as a programmer, I would put the claim to dual-core processing under Major misuses of sources, as having two processors in the same machine is not creating a dual-core processor. It's really, really not. Multi core processing was a specific approach to building computers which came about twenty years later. The source does not make the claim that the 1981 game was "an early dual core", but Jagged chooses to make the claim, I can only assume because multi core processing is cool and up-to-date and makes what he's writing about sound cooler, ahead of its time and generally more exciting. This is exactly the sort of claim he used to make about Muslim thinkers, where if you believed his edits you would have been left with the impression that all of modern maths, medicine and physics sprang directly from Muslim writers of the golden age. For example, he claimed that Muslim thinkers essentially came up with Newton's first law of motion before Newton did, when the Muslim thinkers in question had concepts which were different in important ways; and also the Muslim thinkers ideas have to be put into the context of two thousand years of thinking on the subject if you're not to be left with a misleading view of their importance in the history of physics. It's Jagged's consistent and wilful determination to make overblown claims about things he doesn't understand and which are not in the sources he cites which are a major part of the problem.
Bridies, do you know when you'll get a chance to add your examples?-- Merlinme ( talk) 11:16, 12 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Moving that is fine; I was pretty shocked myself when I came across this claim for the first time a few months ago (and I actually only noticed that he added the same claim to Scramble when I was assembling the evidence yesterday, so that one stayed in the article well over a year). I am not sure exactly what the dividing line for major and minor should be since its not a hard and fast thing, so in general it does not make much difference to me as to what goes where. Indrian ( talk) 14:13, 12 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I've only just had a chance to get some time on a computer since my last comment, and shall get to this presently. bridies ( talk) 11:45, 12 September 2012 (UTC) reply

OK. For now, I've included my findings on a separate page: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Video Game Genres Evidence. This is partly because of the relatively high volume at this point, partly because I haven't been sorting things into major and minor, but also because I thought it would be useful to illustrate the prevalence of bad editing on those particular pages. I have only covered 2 pages so far, and I don't think any accusations of cherry-picking will stand (to this end, I've also summarised what I didn't include). Feel free to integrate or duplicate the examples to the other page if it's felt necessary. I've also included that one RPG example I noticed via an FAC, perhaps that should be on the other page at least... Also, a clarification: I had actually been labouring under the impression this RfC dated from April 2011, and it only just dawned on me that it was 2010. So, this all being from Jan 2011 at the earliest I think, I had a lot more evidence from after the RfC than I thought I did... bridies ( talk) 13:12, 12 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Ok, looks good. There's a lot of material there, I'll try to have a look at it properly this evening. If you agree, what I'll do is copy edit it and transfer it into the format at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Computer Games Evidence, for consistency and so all the evidence is in the same place. We can then discuss what the best approach is for requesting some sort of formal community action.-- Merlinme ( talk) 13:23, 12 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Sounds good. Keep in mind that I am still adding material myself and that it will be at least another day or two and maybe as long as this weekend before I have everything in place. I will post here when I am done adding my examples. Indrian ( talk) 14:09, 12 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I've added Star Cruiser based on the information you gave, bridies. I actually thought his edits were worse than you had already said. He appears to have added an irrelevant, not particularly notable game that is probably not even in the correct genre, using as his sources an infobox and a nearly gibberish google translation of a short Japanese article. Neither source seems to support his extravagant claims that the game introduced 3d polygonal graphics and six degrees of movement. As the evidence mounts that he has barely changed his editing style at all, I am actually having a certain amount of difficulty not getting quite angry about it.
I'll add further examples as I have time. -- Merlinme ( talk) 21:55, 12 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Wow, I guess I had not quite realized the extent of his claims there either. I added some more info to what you put in which shows that his claim that Star Cruiser was a pioneer in polygonal graphics is not only unsupported, but downright fanciful. This actually brings up another disturbing trend that will become even clearer after I have added a little more of my evidence: He likes to credit Japanese products for being innovative and pioneering when there are Western products that either got there first or were doing the same thing at the same time. You can already see that in the Star Cruiser claims and the dual-core processing claims, and I have a whole slew of evidence related to electro-mechanical games (the arcade precursor to video games) that I will be posting in the coming days in which he essentially states that Japanese companies Sega and Taito pioneered nearly every type of EM game when Japan was decades late in entering the coin-op manufacturing industry (here is a taste of what is to come, he calls a 1969 Sega EM racing game an "early" racing game when the first EM racing game was released by an American company in 1941). This appears similar to his tack with Muslim articles in which he wants to credit Muslim scholars with every important scientific and philosophical innovation. This is not good. Indrian ( talk) 00:53, 13 September 2012 (UTC) reply

TBH, I wouldn't directly cite WP:N against this content, as Jagged85 is fond of WP:NNC (see the FPS talk page). But yeah, lack of any verifiable significance is a prevalent issue, whether Jagged85 explicitly claims it or not. Also, with regards to Star Cruiser, I guess I didn't clarify it enough in the first place, but I think it's worth adding WP:SYNTH as being clearly violated. It's not so much Allgame not being "definitive", or the 4gamer source being hard to verify (strictly speaking, if the original Japanese version says what he said it did - which it appears not to - then it'd be perfectly fine), but that Allgame says "first-person shooter" (and nothing else) and 4-Gamer says innovative-among-RPGs (leaving aside the fact it was grossly puffed up to "introduced"). But the "position advanced" is innovative-to-FPS. Pretty much an exemplar of violating: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources.". bridies ( talk) 03:09, 13 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Thanks Bridies, it's well worth you highlighting the examples you'd like me to look at next. Re: plagiarism, if it were the only issue I'd want to look at it in more detail, however I think at this stage we should concentrate on demonstrating that he is still abusing sources in the way he was criticised for in the RFC. Re: the Japanese translation, I agree entirely; if it supported his claims then it would be fine. My point is however that if you are not a reader of Japanese it is a hard to verify source. And Jagged has a long, long history of making extravagant and false claims using hard to verify sources. One previous strategy was to find a scholarly article which mentioned X briefly, and mentioned Y briefly, which Jagged would use to "support" the claim that X invented Y. The article would be behind a paywall, or in an out of print book, or he wouldn't give a page number, making it hard to verify. As far as I can see, linking to pages most editors won't understand and which are hard to translate is just an extension of this strategy.
Indrian, puffing up Eastern inventions vs. Western was one of Jagged's favourite things. It wasn't just Islamic, he also favoured Indian, Chinese, Japanese, etc. Unfortunately it looks like he's now created another massive can of worms in computer games. -- Merlinme ( talk) 08:26, 13 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Started on the light gun shooter article. Thus far just one major example (though covers multiple games): Mechanical games again, with more original synthesis, one terrible use of a primary source, plagiarism... bridies ( talk) 17:22, 13 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Ok, I think that's plenty of computer games evidence. Would anybody else like to have a look, give a second opinion and maybe tidy some of it up? What's the next step; raise it at WP:ANI? -- Merlinme ( talk) 13:01, 14 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I presume raising it at WP:ANI would indeed be the next step according to the advice here. I guess I'd be happy enough to do that, I have a pretty good idea about what I want to say regarding these edits... Some input on briefly describing the prior background might be needed though. Also, I definitely think we should have some of the evidence looked over by non-VG editors. I know it was asked of VG editors to put this stuff together, for obvious reasons, but it's going to be read and the outcome decided presumably by non-VG editors in the main. bridies ( talk) 13:17, 14 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I have about four or five more pieces of evidence I want to include, which I should be able to wrap up today. I just want to be really thorough so that no potential accusation by Jagged of cherry-picking edits stands up to scrutiny. I will let you guys initiate the action in whatever manner you see fit, but I will be right there to continue offering commentary and explanation as necessary throughout the process. Indrian ( talk) 14:49, 14 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Thanks to both of you. bridies, I didn't say earlier because I was trying to get the edits done, but thanks for those references, they were helpful (and that's exactly why I saved a draft). Indrian, I'd appreciate if you could also proof read my Gun Fighter entry, as it's a game I knew nothing about before starting this. -- Merlinme ( talk) 15:22, 14 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I have started looking over the Gun Fight material, and I also happen to own all the books that Jagged cites to. As you can see from the changes I have made already, he completely distorts the material taken from Power-Up beyond recognition, as the book actually states the exact opposite of Jagged's claim regarding story and character. As for the rest, I have a couple of observations before I actually change anything else.
First, the microprocessor claim is perfectly valid, and The Ultimate History of Video Games is one of the more venerable sources in the limited scholarship. Now, it is riddled with errors, but this is not one of them, and I do not believe anyone over at the video game project would consider it poor form to cite to that source. I would recommend taking that complaint out.
Second, the issue of the first Japanese import is complicated by contradicting inaccurate sources, so I am not sure Jagged is really to blame for anything there. Speed Race was the first import, which Midway released as Wheels. This is proven fact. Wheels was also highly successful: contemporary sources show it sold at least 7,000 units in a period of time when 3,000 units was considered a hit in the arcades. Gun Fight is more well-known to contemporary audiences, so many sources erroneously state that it was the first export or the first successful export. Including this complaint may muddy the waters a bit since it is less clear cut.
Finally, I think it is worth specifically calling out his mistake with labeling Nishikado a programmer. This shows a lack of grasp of the basic fundamentals on the difference between creating a game using hardware and creating the game in software, which I think is a big gaffe if one is serious about editing early video game history articles. Furthermore, after this was removed the first time, he actually tried to re-add it, which shows a lack of learning from his mistakes. Let me know what you think about all this. Indrian ( talk) 17:08, 14 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Please make any edits you feel are helpful to the section, you know a lot more about this subject area than I do. I have highlighted exceptional Jagged_85 claims relying on hard to verify sources; some of them (the microprocessor claim, for one) appear to be valid, but given his history that still doesn't excuse him for giving such hard to verify sources. I strongly suspect that when he references a book he is actually relying on google and Amazon "Look inside" to give him a clue what the book says, and he then fills in the gaps using his imagination. However, if you have the books and can actually disprove what he claims the source says, that is obviously a much stronger piece of evidence.
You are presumably beginning to understand though why anyone with experience of Jagged's edits treats with extreme scepticism any exceptional claims made by him using hard-to-verify references. -- Merlinme ( talk) 17:22, 14 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I have edited the Gun Fight article to my satisfaction, though please feel free to bring up anything that seems odd or missing in that material. This is a really bad series of edits, as he basically takes a few statements related to drawing in-game and advertising images together to give the player a sense of setting and turns them into a grand claim that the game designer, Tomohiro Nishikado, was creating the first cinematic narrative in videogaming. Its just absurd. Indrian ( talk) 20:32, 14 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Thanks, looks good. I've done a copy-eedit to emphasise exactly where the claims are not supported by the sources. I also deleted the last point, as it seemed relatively minor to me and we have so much material on the one article I didn't really think it was needed.-- Merlinme ( talk) 21:18, 14 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Background to the case for those who missed the original RFC

A frequent call from Jagged and his occasional supporters is that we should WP:Assume Good Faith. Frankly, with the worst examples I struggle to do this. As much for background for bridies and Indrian as anything else, here is one of the worst examples I've come across. Jagged added a paragraph on Avicenna's contribution to Engineering: [28] and claimed that it's supported by this hard-to-check article: [29]. Anyone who can do that has what I can only describe as a highly flexible attitude to truth. Avicenna/Ibn Sina and his encyclopaedic works are mentioned briefly on page 1 of the article, saying that he based his chapters on Aristotle and Hero. That's it. The very scholarly article then proceeds to discuss the ideas of other Arabic writers at great length, making some claims about originality regarding gravity and levers for those other Arabic writers, but as far as I can tell doesn't even mention Ibn Sina again. In the hands of Jagged this becomes "{Avicenna} makes the first successful attempt to classify simple machines and their combinations. He first describes and illustrates five simple machines: the lever, pulley, screw, wedge, and windlass. He then analyzes all the combinations of these simple machines, such as the windlass-screw, windlass-pulley and windlass-lever for example. He is also the first to describe a mechanism which is essentially a combination of all of these simple machines (except for the wedge)." As far as I can tell the source doesn't mention the pulley, screw, wedge or windlass, which leads me to conclude that the edit is a complete flight of fantasy. (The first to describe and illustrate the lever??) The source in fact almost directly contradicts the claims, as it clearly states that Avicenna's writings were not the first of anything, they were based on Aristotle and Hero.
Anyone who can make that edit should not in my view be editing this encyclopedia. I only corrected it last year, i.e. it stood for four years. It seems certain that there are other edits as bad which are still in the encyclopedia, as Jagged has shown no interest in fixing his other flights of fantasy, and other editors have limited time and/or interest in fixing all of them.
Jagged has previously stated that his 2007 edits were essentially youthful indiscretions, and I was prepared (with significant reservations) to give him a second chance, but as far I can see he is still making very similar edits, in which he uses a reference which mentions his favoured subject as an excuse to write whatever he wants about that subject, in the process making his favoured subject sound a lot more important. The only difference is that he's changed his area of interest; whereas previously he was making untrue claims about things like Avicenna's contributions to engineering, now he's making factually incorrect claims about the NES being the first console to have hardware scrolling.
Assuming Good Faith essentially applies to his motives; I have no idea what his motives are. I don't really think it's relevant. Regardless of his motives, his edits are incredibly destructive to the encyclopedia, and they must stop. -- Merlinme ( talk) 17:47, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Thanks... Though, I'd grasped the gist of what the problem was, as you say it being the exact same as the issue with the video game articles xD. I was more bewildered by all the actual processes and discussions. For example, I'd noted all the clean-up and discussion starting early/mid-2011 and thought the RfC from then, and then later noted it was from 2010... And then there was an attempted arb-com case, disagreements over what Jagged85 had admitted to and to what he'd agreed, and so forth. bridies ( talk) 13:14, 13 September 2012 (UTC) reply

My Video Game Evidence Is Now Complete

Well, after several days of work, I have completed adding what I think are some of the worst examples of Jagged's video game editing to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Computer Games Evidence. There are now twenty discrete editing issues fully documented and cross-referenced spanning a period from January 2011 to March 2012, divided into ten major and ten minor misuses of sources. I feel this evidence is overwhelming in demonstrating the carelessness and ignorance Jagged has displayed on numerous occasions when editing articles related to video games and that no one will be able to claim we chose isolated examples of abuse to paint an unfair picture of Jagged's editing activity. There are certainly many more edits that I could have discussed on that page, but these were the worst of them in my opinion. As far as I am concerned, we are ready for the next step in the process. Note, however, that Bridies has some evidence that has not yet been integrated onto the main evidence page, so I would not want to continue until he is satisfied as well.

I would encourage anyone that has followed this page or the original RFC to examine our evidence for grammar, stylistic and formatting consistency, and ease of understanding for people who know little or nothing about video games or video game history. Myself, Bridies, and Merlinme have spent a significant amount of time putting this all together, and I really hope it leads to some positive results for the project. I do want to emphasize that not every Jagged edit has been a poor one and that he has contributed some good information to video game history articles, but the amount of misinformation he added to the project over the course of more than a year while presenting it with a veneer of respectability by citing to sources that did not actually support his claims has done immeasurable harm to wikipedia and should not be allowed to pass without comment or approbation. Indrian ( talk) 00:29, 15 September 2012 (UTC) reply

  • I've pinged one of the editors involved in the discussion above about possibly copy-editing or at least looking over the evidence page. Otherwise I think we should be able to proceed with it as it is, and within a couple of days either way. Any of my suggestions that Merlinme isn't able to copy edit I can just move as is. bridies ( talk) 17:38, 15 September 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Sounds good. I am also happy to look over your stuff if you like. I already added your Galaxian boss encounter evidence to the main page. Indrian ( talk) 18:39, 15 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I've added a couple more of bridie's examples. For bridie's other examples I think that, although they are not good edits, they are not so obviously dangerous as the ones we've highlighted. The bad examples we already have on the evidence page are surely more than enough to demonstrate that Jagged_85 is a very, very dangerous editor. I've said in the lead that this is not a definitive list of bad edits. If you wish we could add a link to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Video Game Genres Evidence as an example of other bad edits not included in the main evidence.
We should probably also discuss what we want to achieve from raising at WP:ANI, assuming that's the next step. Personally I think Jagged_85 should be banned for life. Take a look at: Wikipedia_talk:Requests for comment/Jagged_85/Cleanup1. Now bear in mind that there are another ten pages like that. Now imagine spending days of your life checking every single one of Jagged_85's edits in articles you have some knowledge of, e.g. Wikipedia computer games articles. It took me six months to correct one Islamic history article; changing topic does not seem to have helped. Do you think it's a good idea having this guy edit the encyclopedia? -- Merlinme ( talk) 22:39, 15 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Yeah, when I made suggestions of "major misuse" I was thinking in terms of how bad the (mis)use of the source was, rather than in terms of how "bad" (spurious, damaging, etc.) the claim itself was. So with something like Galaxian, at least the source used the word "boss". Whereas with the pre-Space Invaders claim (more subjective historical commentary), he invented the statement that they were "early experimental shooters" out of thin air, and used it as an excuse to write a full paragraph describing several games, and citing several sources which didn't support the implication. Or stuff like the cover systems and second person shooter where he'd invented claims counter to the sources. I'm fine with going with the current evidence though, as either way all the genre stuff is documented on the other page if needed. I agree with an indefinite community ban (assuming the term is something like that): for the reasons of repeatedly terrible editing over several years, continuing after the RfC, and the fact that neither the video game project, nor likely anyone else, has the wherewithal to clean up after him (as evidenced by the fact this stuff was allowed to stand on such a large scale in the first place, despite the previous RfC). bridies ( talk) 11:05, 16 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I've finished tidying the evidence, I'm going to raise at WP:ANI.-- Merlinme ( talk) 21:09, 16 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Indefinite block

See: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User_Jagged_85_and_abuse_of_sources

"I've blocked Jagged 85 indefinitely. I'd usually wait for a response first, but given the history here, I don't think there's anything they could say that will change my mind. The evidence is clear that they have engaged in long term, systematic, and widespread source misrepresentation. They've been more than adequately warned for this precise conduct during the RFC/U, but yet have persisted in this behavior. Cleaning up after them has already cost massive amounts of volunteer time, and allowing him to continue to edit will only cause more time to be wasted on checking up and verifying his work, especially since a lot of the problems involve difficult-to-obtain sources. In short, it is very far from a net positive to allow them to continue to edit. T. Canens (talk) 05:42, 17 September 2012 (UTC)". Not before time, I think it's fair to say. -- Merlinme ( talk) 06:49, 17 September 2012 (UTC) reply
In his unblock appeal Jagged 85 maintains that he enjoyed some support in the ArbCom case in March 2011. I come to the opposite conclusion: Comparing the editors in the RFC/U with those of the ANI discussion, there is no overlap between these groups at all. In other words: an entirely new and different group of editors has constituted itself and has also found fault with Jagged 85's edit pattern, meaning there is actually a very broad community consensus. Just wanted to share this observation. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 09:27, 18 September 2012 (UTC) reply
For that matter, I don't think editors such as Aquib would class themselves as supporters now that they've had a chance to check Jagged_85's edits.
I'm engaged in a conversation with Jagged_85 at his talk page re: unblock request. What I find most bizarre about the whole experience is that he apparently doesn't see anything wrong with guessing what sources mean. His defence more-or-less ignores his pathological desire to claim in every edit that something was the first to do something, often using hard to verify references. But his defence does cover the subject of using (very bad) google translations, on which he says: "it's difficult to make out what exactly it is saying, but the "story betrayed" part sounds like a plot twist and while the "turning serif affectation of character" sounds like it's referring to character development. Maybe someone who can actually read Japanese can do a much better job of translating/interepreting, but all I can say is that I tried my best to make some sense of it." Me, I would say "I have no idea what that's on about it". In Jagged_85's encyclopedia, you can apparently have a stab at guessing what it meant, filling in any gaps with your imagination. -- Merlinme ( talk) 16:39, 18 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Book of Optics

Just to let you know the Book of Optics article with Jagged's content was restored by an IP a few months ago. I did some fixing since then (without being aware of this), but the fixes were very limited in scope, so I would support a re-stub even though it would remove my work as well. Arc de Ciel ( talk) 04:47, 17 September 2012 (UTC) reply

I've restored it to the version before the "unstubbbing". You will presumably want to put back in some of your edits. I'm a little concerned with the state of it as it was even at that stage. Has somebody actually checked the sources cited? i.e. D. C. Lindberg (1976), Theories of Vision from al-Kindi to Kepler, Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Press, pp. 60-7, "Rosanna Gorini (2003). "Al-Haytham the Man of Experience. First Steps in the Science of Vision", International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine. Institute of Neurosciences, Laboratory of Psychobiology and Psychopharmacology, Rome, Italy.", "Rüdiger Thiele (2005). "In Memoriam: Matthias Schramm", Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 15, p. 329–331. Cambridge University Press." I've modified a very Jagged_85 sounding sentence which manages to imply that Al-Hazen invented intromission theory, as opposed to doing experiments which supported it. -- Merlinme ( talk) 07:42, 17 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Good job guys . I,m going to move a copy of this to talk:Book of Optics.
(Answered there.) Arc de Ciel ( talk) 06:49, 18 September 2012 (UTC) reply

What next for computer games?

Pretty much every dubious edit which I nailed down seemed to be either not supported by the source or provably wrong. There's also the same old problem of the same bad material being duplicated in many places. Presumably someone is going to have to try to fix some of the damage. Can we create another page along the lines of: Wikipedia_talk:Requests for comment/Jagged_85/Cleanup1? Is there a way to identify articles (such as Arsys_Software) which only he has edited, and which can be stubbed or even deleted? -- Merlinme ( talk) 08:35, 17 September 2012 (UTC) reply

I plan to go through the genre articles, to start with. Off the top of my head History of Eastern role-playing video games is almost all Jagged85 (which may also compromise the dichotomy of that and History of Western role-playing video games). First-person (video games) is another where he is top contributor, and from which I've just removed "In 1984, Technosoft released Plazma Line, a first-person space racing game. Released for the FM-7 computer, it is considered the first computer game with 3D polygon graphics." Cited to a Japanese language website... bridies ( talk) 13:32, 17 September 2012 (UTC) reply
And which is repeated in Technosoft, to which he is also top contributor... yeah, I think we need some systematic solution. Otherwise, I'll take the genre articles for now... bridies ( talk) 13:35, 17 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Yeah, it would probably be a good idea to have some kind of system for this. I plan to start going through more of his edits and rolling them back as well. Indrian ( talk) 15:15, 17 September 2012 (UTC) reply

A little off topic, but maybe I was too hasty in concluding that his "bias" was largely the result of incompetence. I just came across this edit in which he tried to claim that the Japanese game Herzog Zwei was an early example of Tower Defense, a genre that grew out of a mod for American RTS game Warcraft III over a decade later. As usual, the source does not in any way label Herzog Zwei a tower defense game and just states that if a modern version of the game were created, it would probably take a similar path to League of Legends. Just more fodder in case he tries to appeal the ban. Indrian ( talk) 16:25, 17 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Global ban for Jagged 85

I believe an indefinite ban for the English Wikipedia is not enough, it also needs a indefinite global ban for all language versions. The RFC/U and ANI have found his work style and bias to be the main issues. Work style and biases don't change when the language of communication changes, they remain the same. If the user starts editing another language version, he will naturally carry on with his problematic work style there. Only the language he uses would change, but his methods won't improve.

I regard Wikipedia as one project. We did once the mistake that we were happy after the RFC/U that he was gone from history-related articles. Relieved, we did not look too hard further afield. The result was that two years later other editors came here complaining about the havoc Jagged 85 had done in the meantime in their field. We should not commit the same mistake twice. Dubious material from another language version may find its way through the backdoor to the English Wikipedia by the way of translation. I have seen a number of Jaggedized articles translated into French (like here) and those poor fellows don't even know how toxic the stuff is they have translated. What if Jagged 85 simply switches the language version and his material is translated from there into English by unsuspecting users? We won't even know where it came from. Therefore, I think he needs to be banned from the entire project before the same hare and tortoise process starts at another place all over again someday. What do you think? Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 16:23, 17 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Addendum: Jagged 85 is by his own account well versed in many languages. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 08:53, 18 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I'd lend my support if someone more familiar with meta did the honours: it looks to be very difficult to get someone globally locked for disruption ("Global locks are used exclusively against vandalism and spam"). bridies ( talk) 23:19, 17 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Agreed, this ban definitely needs to be global. For that matter, at this point I think it's clear that absolutely all of his Jagged's contributions—without exception—should be nuked wherever they have not been rewritten from scratch. Way too much time has already been spent digging through the mess he created here only to find what we already knew; this user has systematically and intentionally been adding novels worth of misinformation to Wikipedia for years. :bloodofox: ( talk) 03:38, 18 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I support the intention, he's a very dangerous editor. However I don't know how easy it is to achieve in practical terms. Re: nuking everything, that would be controversial, to say the least. Assuming there were no conflicting edits, removing large chunks of text from an article would presumably stop it making sense. The only way I can see that working is if someone produced a rollback tool which undid all of Jagged_85's edits for an article which didn't have conflicts, and then an editor edited the article and added linking sentences etc. so that it made sense again.
If we could get a tool which did that, it might make cleaning up the smaller, less controversial articles easier. I don't think it would help much with the big, complicated articles with lots of partially cleaned edits.
What actually might be more helpful would be to undo all the reference adding which he did, which would presumably have fewer conflicts, as people rarely change references. This would then immediately highlight all the dubiously sourced material; anything without a non-Jagged_85 reference could be given a "citation needed" or just deleted, as appropriate. It would be enormously helpful, because you wouldn't have to spend half an hour+ chasing up each hard-to-verify source, you can just treat the claim as unsourced.
Incidentally, should we just nominate articles solely created by Jagged_85 for deletion? I'm thinking of Arsys Software in particular. -- Merlinme ( talk) 08:04, 18 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Strongly endorse the case for a global ban. There is no reason why he should be allowed to edit other language 'predias if he is banned from this one. Regarding the cleanup tool, I think JohnUniq had a great cleanup tool that listed all of Jagged's edits to each article, but I can't find it right now. Stay tuned though. Athenean ( talk) 09:18, 18 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Here is the cleanup tool I was talking about [30], see the "cleanup lists" part. Does not include recent damage done to video games articles though. Athenean ( talk) 09:37, 18 September 2012 (UTC) reply
The overview is at WP:Jagged 85 cleanup (same page as noted above) which includes a link to the Contribution Surveyor that was used to produce the cleanup pages. However, that tool shows each edit as an individual diff, whereas I have a script that shows a group of consecutive edits as a single diff, and that can sometimes significantly reduce the number of diffs (I have to run it on my computer, for example, see User talk:Johnuniq#Genre articles). I was wondering earlier whether I should do something for all the pages edited by Jagged since the date that the previous cleanups were created. I am busy working on some template code, so I was both surprised and relieved to see that I had missed the ANI discussion and the resulting block. Any thoughts on whether anything should be done now? I will be absent for long periods, but will try to do something if needed. Johnuniq ( talk) 12:24, 18 September 2012 (UTC) reply

An admin requests statements of the community on whether to block or ban Jagged 85, see ANI. I raised the point of a global ban there. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 21:06, 18 September 2012 (UTC) reply

French Wikipedia

I asked about Jagged's contributions at the talk page of a contributor to the French article that GPM mentioned above, and that user has brought it up on the French AN/I. Arc de Ciel ( talk) 17:47, 18 September 2012 (UTC) reply

It is outright depressing. Even in a very quick search I found several Jaggedized articles at least partly translated into French WP:
Âge d'or islamique
Sciences et techniques islamiques
Astronomie arabe
You can tell the user he should check the French versions of all articles I stubbed. May God protect the French WP. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 21:21, 18 September 2012 (UTC) reply
He already saw and linked it in the discussion. :-) Is there a way we could detect possible translation across all the other language WPs as well? Arc de Ciel ( talk) 06:20, 19 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Yes, it is the Jagged fingerprint, a number of recurring characteristics which have not changed over the years. I still remember the stuff down to individual claims because I was heavily involved in removing it last year, but it only takes a while that an editor new to it can also get a feel for it. Basically, your French colleague has to prepare the French community that they should be ready to stub whole articles however well-referenced they appear on the outside. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 09:58, 19 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Community ban discussion

Would everyone watching this page please comment at the Community ban discussion. Some people have commented at ANI or on this page, but it is important that as many people as possible participate in the formal proceedings (with a support or oppose or comment) because a high rate of participation would indicate the concern of the community regarding this issue. That will be important in the future if an unblock proposal is made, or if a similar discussion is undertaken at another project. Johnuniq ( talk) 03:04, 19 September 2012 (UTC) reply

I would also like to point out again that it is pivotal to give your opinion about a global ban or not. Only with a global ban there is a fair chance that those parts of Jagged 85's material which have already been translated into other languages can be removed in the foreseeable future. I made a comment explaining this more fully at the Community ban discussion on 09:44, 19 September 2012 (UTC). Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 09:50, 19 September 2012 (UTC) reply

More restoration of articles

After the re-stubbing of Book of Optics discussed above, I decided to go through the articles listed here as having been stubbed or otherwise heavily modified. Sorry if everyone's already aware of these.

I see that a couple of these have discussion on their talk pages already, but I decided to list them anyways. For example, at Talk:Alhazen, someone said that they had checked everything last year, but I found sourcing problems in the article as recently as a few months ago. Arc de Ciel ( talk) 06:21, 19 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Thanks. I was aware that Alhazen had been "unstubbed", I've been trying to do an edit to get rid of the worst Jaggedisms. It's not as bad as the worst Jagged articles; most of the references I checked in the first few paragraphs actually supported the text! It's still far from cleaned up though. I had to remove a horrific sentence implying Alhazen set out to create the scientific method, and there's a lot to go. Really the Cleanup page should be updated to put the diffs back in as clearly they haven't all been checked. -- Merlinme ( talk) 08:25, 19 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Alhazen was restored as early as 3 May 2011 with a typical explanation: it cannot be that bad. But it is. I support restubbing wherever necessary as the only viable way. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 10:08, 19 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Is there support for re-stubbing or do we just let it go? Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 18:09, 10 December 2012 (UTC) reply
Re-stub. — Ruud 18:27, 10 December 2012 (UTC) reply
If so, it needs active support from as many users as possible. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 18:52, 10 December 2012 (UTC) reply
Support stubbing. This is a highly Jaggedized article. Athenean ( talk) 22:37, 10 December 2012 (UTC) reply
Support stubbing, though I would suggest finding at least 2 examples of faulty citations in the article first and mentioning them on the talk page to avoid future disputes over the stubbing. Dialectric ( talk) 23:05, 10 December 2012 (UTC) reply
Hmm. Speaking as someone who's 'de-Jaggedized' several articles, I'm not sure I'd agree with "highly Jaggedized". Parts of it are highly Jaggedized, but I've checked all the citations down to the end of Other works on physics and corrected the ones which I thought needed changing. I'd made a start on Astronomical works. I'm not saying it's a particularly great article, but it doesn't misquote its sources up to that point. I had not however finished de-Jaggedizing the article, which is a rather time-consuming process, and I've not had a lot of time recently for various personal and work related reasons. I'm also hoping that Questia membership will make checking references easier.
I've just shortened the long list under "known for". I would also support stubbing from Astronomical works to Works, i.e. sections 4, 5 and 6. I've not had a chance to check them yet, I'm not sure when I will get a chance to check them, and at a glance they look pretty standard Jagged tosh. I would abstain on restubbing the whole article. -- Merlinme ( talk) 09:53, 11 December 2012 (UTC) reply
If it is about halfway 'de-Jaggedized', who is doing the other half and in what period of time? From what I take it took you half a year to clean-up a single article by checking the sources one by one. And there are five other articles waiting for a clean-up. Perhaps we can split the workload in half, with each of us doing the clean-up the way he believes it is most appropriate. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 23:59, 13 December 2012 (UTC) reply
As it happens I have a day off today, and this discussion has stimulated my interest again (as has starting reading The Mind of the Middle Ages, which I bought a while ago). So I'll see how far I can get today.
Regarding the other articles, I'm more than happy for you to deal with them as you think best. Bearing in mind how time consuming checking sources is, I would support stubbing. I don't support stubbing Alhazen on the basis that quite a lot of work has gone into checking sources already, and it should be achievable to "de-Jaggedize" it in a reasonable amount of time.-- Merlinme ( talk) 09:42, 14 December 2012 (UTC) reply

Incidentally, is there any support for stubbing Ophthalmology in medieval Islam? There still seem to be a lot of fairly dubious, uncited statements in it to me, nearly three years since Jagged_85 stopped editing it, and despite the efforts of Dialectric, WMC, etc. I can't imagine I'm going to have time to go through it properly any time soon. -- Merlinme ( talk) 11:38, 19 December 2012 (UTC) reply

I sugest a redirect to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophthalmology#Middle_Eastern_ophthalmology if anyone wants to rebuild they can start there. J8079s ( talk) 16:34, 19 December 2012 (UTC) reply
That sounds a possible approach. The Wikipedia article seems very dubious at the moment. For example, this source, which seems relatively reliable, [31], says: "Hospitals, departmentalized very much in the modern manner, grew up and ophthalmic departments were always large and important. Many operative procedures known to Galen and his successors were perfected and some important additions were made. Numerous treatises on diseases of the eye appeared, all drawing their inspiration from the Greek writings...The Arabians perfected old procedures rather than explored new avenues...It is characteristic of the period that Ali ben Isa (Jesus Hali), Alcoatin and Ammar ben Ali wrote text-books that were used for centuries." It is quite noticeable that the most significant Arabic ophthalmic works during this period seem to be textbooks which collated earlier writing. There are other significant works on vision etc., but I would question whether these should be considered ophthalmic, in the normal sense of eye medicine. Contrast this with the current Wikipedia article, which makes statements like "whose work can be considered the earliest work on Ophthalmology", "The next major landmark text on ophthalmology", "the first to attribute photoreceptor properties to the retina", etc. etc. If you took out the dubious claims and the list of works which are not clearly on ophthalmology or are not clearly notable, there wouldn't be a great deal left. -- Merlinme ( talk) 17:49, 19 December 2012 (UTC) reply

Automated Removal of Jagged_85 added content or references

Merlinme and Bloodfox have started a discussion on removing Jagged_85 's edits or reference additions in the 'Global ban for Jagged 85' section above. I agree that removing all of his edits would be impractical, and think that the suggestion of automatically removing all of the references he added would be an excellent solution, replacing the refs with citation needed tags.

The refs could even be added to a further reading section so if someone does have the time to check them, it can be in the service of making positive additions to the article rather than the slow fact checking the inline references have required.

If there is support for this idea, the two open questions are (1)what sort of community/admin approval would be needed to make this change, and (2) how would it be done technically? a script? a bot? Dialectric ( talk) 10:01, 19 September 2012 (UTC) reply

There is no good way to proceed. There are at least two problems from removing some part of a Jagged edit: (1) By editing the content, the editor makes it appear that they approve of the text as they left it; (2) It is harder for others to judge just what was Jagged's claim, so making it harder to finally clean up the section. If some text says "X was the first Y[ref: some book]", there is always the possibility that someone would check the ref at least to some extent, and conclude that the claim is probably unverified—that's a good reason to remove the text altogether. However, if the article says "X was the first Y[citation needed]", it is hard to see how any progress will be made until some wizard arrives to rewrite the article based on extensive knowledge and personal study. That's because it's always possible that X really was the first Y, or at least a reasonably early or important Y, and all that's needed is to find a suitable reference. I think it's best to not perform any kind of automated fixing of Jagged's edits because of these two problems. It would be reasonable for someone to look at a particular article and, after some research, conclude that Jagged's work is unhelpful, and they might systematically unwind what Jagged did (or just stub it). That would be fine, but it's not possible to adopt a policy of doing that to all articles edited by Jagged—the community would not approve of such an approach because an editor removing stuff has to be doing so in response to an analysis of the particular article and the particular edits. An ugly situation. Johnuniq ( talk) 11:00, 19 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Hmm. How about adding verification needed tag to all of Jagged_85's references then? Or even creating a new tag especially for the purpose?
In general I think we need some sort of automated way of proceeding, or we'll be cleaning edits for the next hundred years. In practice there isn't enough volunteer time to check every single edit in every single article. If there's some automated way of highlighting possibly dubious sources, then it gives editors not involved in the main Jagged cleanup project a chance to check some of the sources, as well as highlighting potentially problematic material.
In general I think we should get some broader community feedback on how much can or should be automated. Now is probably a good time, while it's fresh in people's minds from the ban discussion. Perhaps start an RFC? -- Merlinme ( talk) 12:10, 19 September 2012 (UTC) reply
That sounds good. I wonder what would be involved in making a tag that can easily be added, and which creates a footnote with a brief note mentioning that the text and/or reference needs careful consideration, with a link to a page having more information. Johnuniq ( talk) 22:21, 19 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Should we clear Jagged's user page and instead place an explanation there detailing what has occurred? This would help in raising awareness. As of now it's littered with a host of misleading items, including barn stars and Wikiproject membership user boxes. Considering that Jagged85 was perhaps one of the worst users that Wikipedia has ever seen—certainly the most damaging user I've ever heard of—I don't see why there should be a regular user page there touting "achievements". :bloodofox: ( talk) 00:04, 20 September 2012 (UTC) reply
That seems unnecessarily vindictive to me. We've already been criticized for trying to apply Damnatio memoriae. The user page clearly states that Jagged_85 is indefinitely blocked, so it's pretty obvious he's been a bad boy. Anyone who wants to know why can look at the Talk page.
In terms of damage done I agree though, the only other editor I can think of who might be even close would be User:Scibaby, although I wasn't closely involved in that cleanup so I don't know how it compares. To be fair, Scibaby does have his Talk page replaced with a "banned user" message.
Anyway, what do we have to do to get agreement for a Jagged reference tagging bot? Who would write it? -- Merlinme ( talk) 09:55, 20 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I'm not sure such a bot would be feasible because it is unlikely a procedure could be specified that would work in an automated fashion, yet do something useful. At any rate, the first step would be to manually change a few articles to establish exactly what is wanted, and to see if a step-by-step procedure might work. Incidentally, I'm planning to see what is possible about creating a subpage with diffs for the many articles edited by Jagged in the last couple of years, sorted by number of edits. I should get that done before Monday, and will mention any results here. Johnuniq ( talk) 21:42, 20 September 2012 (UTC) reply

New cleanup lists

I have added some information to WP:Jagged 85 cleanup, including a set of new cleanup lists that show edits to articles after 11 June 2010 (that is, those not covered by the previous lists). Where a set of diffs is shown, it includes all edits to the article (including those before 11 June 2010). Because there are lots of links, the pages are slow to load unless broken down into small chunks—that's why there are ten of them. To make it easier to find a particular title, there is an index. There are far too many pages to be cleaned up any time soon, but I thought it was better to list everything so editors could access it if wanted. Johnuniq ( talk) 08:58, 22 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Jagged stuff in Solidarity

As usual the mighty fantastic islam was first, also regarding Solidarity regarding that Ibn Khaldun was the father of solidarity ... but, how is this to be handled? Should it be erased, erased with a template, or just marked with a Jagged template? Rursus dixit. ( mbork3!) 16:33, 24 October 2012 (UTC) reply

I would simply undo this edit. — Ruud 17:26, 24 October 2012 (UTC) reply
Yes. You could a) spend a day or two trying to verify the sources, address any distortions in Jagged's edit, and decide whether the correct amount of weight has been given (which requires a fairly extensive knowledge of the reliable sources); or b) undo.
If someone actually thinks the material is relevant and beneficial to the article, they are welcome to restore some or all of it with references they have personally verified.
Given the endless problems with Jagged's edits, I really don't think dubious material should be given any benefit of the doubt. -- Merlinme ( talk) 17:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC) reply
Actually I just tried and you can't undo that edit; however it seems pretty clear that this was all added by Jagged_85. Personally I would delete the whole section. -- Merlinme ( talk) 17:51, 24 October 2012 (UTC) reply
I think that it's entirely obvious now that Jagged's additions should just be removed, doubt regarding the claim or not. He demonstrated over and over that he was keen on misusing sources, and for this reason alone all of his "contributions" should simply go whenever they're spotted. :bloodofox: ( talk) 23:09, 24 October 2012 (UTC) reply

Father of, continued

For anyone still watching this page, I have to record my combined horror and amusement when I accidentally encountered an article that proudly proclaimed:

Catholic scientists are considered the fathers of numerous scientific fields, including, but not limited to, modern physics, acoustics, mineralogy, modern chemistry, modern anatomy, stratigraphy, bacteriology, genetics, analytical geometry, and heliocentric cosmology. [ permalink

I particularly admire the audacity of the heliocentric cosmology claim, although a better link would be Galileo affair. Groan. Johnuniq ( talk) 11:50, 11 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Indeed. I've done a quick cleanup of the account of the Galileo affair in List of Catholic scientists, which included the rather eyebrow-raising claim that popes supported heliocentrism. Not for two centuries, they didn't. I'm not convinced we even need such a list, but if we must then it should at least be relatively NPOV. I also removed an uncited claim to be first for controlled experiment which was in the Galileo affair. It may or may not be true, but such a strong claim certainly can't go into Wikipedia without a strong source. POV editing is clearly alive and well! I live in hope though that other POV editors will struggle to match Jagged_85's prodigious output and his rather "flexible" attitude towards sourcing.
I am meaning to get back to Jagged_85 cleanup at some point, there's still plenty to do, but I've been quite busy at work recently. -- Merlinme ( talk) 08:31, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply
The editor of this article has put back in a worse paragraph than the one Johnuniq deleted, including the claim "father of modern physics". I've deleted it again and added the article to my watchlist. -- Merlinme ( talk) 09:09, 15 April 2013 (UTC) reply
Given that there is a very long and detailed article on Catholic Church and science, why do we need a List of Catholic scientists anyway? In a large majority of cases, especially before modern times, a scientist's religion can be deduced from where and when they were born. I don't really see what purpose is served by listing every single Renaissance scientist, for example. -- Merlinme ( talk) 09:24, 15 April 2013 (UTC) reply
Agreed. There's also List of Roman Catholic cleric–scientists. Surely this is better handled with cats? William M. Connolley ( talk) 09:37, 15 April 2013 (UTC) reply
What about this why we need List of atheists in science and technology and List of Muslim scientists and Lists of Muslim scientists and scholars and List of Muslim Nobel Laureates and Muslim doctors (Given that there is a very long and detailed article on Islam and science) and List of Jewish scientists and philosophers and List of British Jewish scientists.

And did their atheisim or islam or jewish religion have impact on their scientific discoveries?, some names in List of Jewish Nobel laureates are even convert to other religion, but still mention in the article. and for the Muslim scientists are they religious and they were pious muslims or thier name mention in the article just beacouse they born in muslim country?

and by the way the edit wasn't my edit by origin i just put back with sources claims that this scientists were "catholic by practice". and you can make a look here for some names: Galileo: pious Roman Catholic Sharratt (1994, pp. 17, 213), Pasteur fundamentally remained Catholic Vallery-Radot, Maurice (1994). Pasteur. Paris: Perrin. pp. 377–407. Stephen Hawking; A Brief History of Time, 1996; p. 194-195 anyway i'm agree with deleting the paragraph "father of" since it's controversial and i admit it's was wrong to put it back.-- Jobas ( talk) 12:30, 15 April 2013 (UTC) reply

  1. Two wrongs don't make a right; the fact that other similar lists exist is not a strong reason in favour of the Catholic list.
  2. The lead to the atheists lead reads, in full: "This is a list of atheists. Living persons in this list are people whose atheism is relevant to their notable activities or public life, and who have publicly identified themselves as atheists." The lead to the Catholics list contains a great deal of discussion about Catholicism and science, which almost certainly belongs in Catholic Church and science.
  3. Lists of muslim scientists and scholars is a redirect to List of Muslim scientists. The lead to the latter article reads, in full: "This is a list of Muslim scientists. Muslim scientists have played a significant role in the history of science. There have been hundreds of notable Muslim scientists who have made contributions to civilization and to society by furthering the development of science in the High Middle Ages."
  4. List of Jewish scientists and philosophers is mainly a redirect list to national articles. The lead to List of British Jewish scientists reads, in full: "List of British Jewish scientists is a list that includes scientists from the United Kingdom and its predecessor states who are or were Jewish or of Jewish descent."
  5. So I guess what I'm objecting to is the amount of highly debatable material in the lead. I'm not sure these list articles should exist if there is no clear evidence that the category had an effect on their activities, but if they must, then please can we keep the amount of dubious editorialising in the article to a minimum. You re-inserted a paragraph with exceptional claims with minimal citations, and above all failed to show that the religion of the scientists mentioned in the paragraph was relevant to the discoveries which were mentioned in the paragraph. Please don't do this. -- Merlinme ( talk) 13:10, 15 April 2013 (UTC) reply
We can remove the all the highly debatable [aragraph that discussion about Catholicism and science which belong to Catholic Church and science, and replace it to sentence similar to above as "this is list about scientists who identified themselves as catholic". I will not re-inserted the paragraph again i admit it befor it was wrong since the sources were cliams that they were only identified themselves as catholic and no mentioned how affected to thier work.-- Jobas ( talk) 13:19, 15 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Japanese Inventions

I deleted a bit from Japanese Inventions, but most of the garbage has been restored because some people are apparently of the position that lots of fraudulent information is obviously better than little or no information (Groan). Anyhow... I dug out the elusive source link for Vitamin B1. It's the last page of this link: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/nikkashi1880/32/1/32_1_1/_pdf Just in case additional text is needed, it's also the first page of this link: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/nikkashi1880/32/1/32_1_4/_pdf Unfortunately it's in Japanese (or possibly Chinese?) Can someone get it read? Compare it to the achievements and dates in the Thiamine#History. It looks like the claim of Japanese discovery isn't going to hold up. Alsee ( talk) 02:27, 8 May 2013 (UTC) reply

Alsee, I went through the Japanese inventions article a few months ago and removed nearly all of the egregiously bad entries, so while I wouldn't say that there is lots of fraudulent information left in the article, there are definitely still some borderline/gray area claims that could use more sourcing, or failing that, removal. Dialectric ( talk) 07:10, 8 May 2013 (UTC) reply
A bit off topic, sorry, but I just randomly checked one of your cleanup edits [32] and noticed that what Jagged 85 wrote seems to be verifiable (listen to minute 4:28 in the audio interview). Wiqi( 55) 03:48, 8 May 2013 (UTC) reply
Wiqi55, most editors involved in this cleanup acknowledge that Jagged made valid edits alongside his misleading edits. If you find a reliable source for a given claim that has been removed, feel free to add it back in with the reference. Dialectric ( talk) 07:10, 8 May 2013 (UTC) reply


Redacted edits

Jagged made 6 redacted edits

All the best, Rich  Farmbrough, 04:59, 19 April 2014 (UTC). reply

May 2014 Anon IP edits to Muslim history of science articles

User talk:86.157.103.109 has recently made a number of unexplained, large edits to articles in the same area as Jagged_85. These include Arab Agricultural Revolution, Jābir ibn Hayyān‎, and Ancient higher-learning institutions, among others, and take a pro-Muslim perspective overall. I would not typically raise this here, but the user began editing this month, edits from London, where Jagged was sometimes based, and from the outset shows familiarity with wikimarkup. The user has also added at least one ref to history-science-technology.com and Ahmad Y. al-Hassan, a scholar who's unpublished and self published works were popular with Jagged for their extraordinary claims of Muslim invention. At this point, I am only suggesting that interested editors keep an eye on this IP's work. Dialectric ( talk) 17:16, 26 May 2014 (UTC) reply

I suppose the thing to do is ask. Per WP:Duck I think this is one of the users from the Jagged 85 account but there are some changes. I am away from my computer most of the week but I will assume good faith and try to engage at talk. J8079s ( talk) 22:42, 26 May 2014 (UTC) reply
I came here to report the very same. This edit pattern looks strongly like Jagged's. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Ban evasion Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 00:50, 29 May 2014 (UTC) reply
I have listed edits by 86.157.103.109 ( talk · contribs) at Cleanup12. I have only looked at a few edits, but they appear fairly innocuous at this stage. Johnuniq ( talk) 06:41, 29 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Doesn't really matter: A ban is a ban and there are no good reasons to circumvent a ban, see WP:Site ban and WP:BMB. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 19:44, 29 May 2014 (UTC) reply

On closer inspection, Jagged 85 has been avoiding his ban for some time now. Several more IPs popped up while I undid the edits of 86.157.103.109:

All are, surprise, from London. Looks he feels lonely and plans a stealth comeback through the backdoor. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 20:20, 29 May 2014 (UTC) reply

I started off with an open mind thinking that maybe this was someone else who had a pro-Muslim bias. But after checking a few edits I agree, that has Jagged_85 written all over it. 86.186.44.113 has no history before 20th May, and then makes 30 substantial edits in ten hours. I simply don't know any other editor who has that level of stamina (or carelessness). This edit: [33] adds five (!) references to the opening sentence of the lead. Adding references is unusual for an IP; adding five references to the lead is very much Jagged's style. This substantial edit to History of Medicine: [34] replaces:
practices inherited from the ancient masters were improved and then systematized in Rogerius's The Practice of Surgery. Universities began systematic training of physicians around the years 1220 in Italy
with the text:
medical and surgical practices were improved in medieval Islamic medicine and then systematized in Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine and Rogerius's The Practice of Surgery. Bimaristan medical schools began systematic training of physicians in the Middle East, followed by universities around the years 1220 in Italy.
I'm sure anyone who's familiar with Jagged_85's style will recognise that kind of edit.
What do we do to enforce the ban at this point? I haven't had the time or energy to get close to cleaning up more than a handful of articles; I certainly don't want to have any more damage to clean up. -- Merlinme ( talk) 07:19, 30 May 2014 (UTC) reply
I've checked 86.186.44.113. Now checking 86.157.99.120. -- Merlinme ( talk) 08:21, 30 May 2014 (UTC) reply
I've checked 86.157.99.120. I checked the substantial edits by 87.81.139.93, who I'm not 100% convinced is Jagged_85, although there are some suspicious edits to Hospital. -- Merlinme ( talk) 09:08, 30 May 2014 (UTC) reply
It looks to me like it's time for someone who's been following this closely to request a sockpuppet investigation, if for no other reason than to get this formally into the system. Jagged 85 does have a history of past sockpuppetry. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 17:42, 30 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Ok, that's done: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Jagged_85 It's slightly painful getting diffs for four different IPs into the form, but anyway I got there in the end. Feel free to add additional evidence if you wish. I've largely copied the current discussion, which assumes people are familiar with Jagged_85's style, if other editors have time it would be quite helpful to add examples of definite Jagged_85 edits to help those investigating the sock puppets who are not familiar with Jagged_85's style. -- Merlinme ( talk) 17:45, 2 June 2014 (UTC) reply
I have reverted 86.157.103.109 and 86.186.44.113 completely. According to WP:BMB, it does not matter if the edit by a banned user is to be considered "good" or not (quite logically so, because otherwise the instrument of a ban would be undermined, since opinions will always vary about what is good and what not). We should make it clear to Jagged 85 that whatever he edits on WP.EN he will be reverted on sight, to discourage him from further editing. Will take to the other two IPs in the coming days. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 10:37, 10 June 2014 (UTC) reply

Good catch everybody glad you are still watching. I,ve been out of town but I am back now and plan to spend some wiki time. See you out there J8079s ( talk) 03:11, 1 September 2014 (UTC) reply

Black hole

The black hole is shrinking slowly new comers can realize how bad it was becoming. I am still working on the clean up but very slowly I feel like I've given my self homework that I don't want to do. J8079s ( talk) 04:08, 7 January 2015 (UTC) reply

Well at least you won't be wondering whether any more fixes are needed at Wikipedia for a long while...thanks for the good work! I noticed that when you posted here you removed the ref tags that someone had put in #Father of, continued above. LOL! Have a look at Avicenna which starts:
Avicenna...was a Persian[5][6][7][8] polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age.[9] He has been described as the "Father of Early Modern Medicine".[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]
The reason there are eight refs to show that he really was described as Father is of course to make sure no one removes the statement despite its lack of meaning. It would be interesting to compile a list of father of claims in articles. Johnuniq ( talk) 05:29, 7 January 2015 (UTC) reply
List of people considered father or mother of a scientific field and List of Islamic scholars described as father or founder of a field cover a lot of these claims. Used in articles, the 'father of' statement almost never makes note that the person is in most cases just one of a number of people who have been called 'Father of x' Dialectric ( talk) 16:00, 7 January 2015 (UTC) reply
Hmmm, I had forgotten about those and was astonished to find the first was on my watchlist; thanks for the reminder. It seems more reasonable than the Avicenna claims, although no doubt if the refs were examined, we would find that several are based on opinions by people with no acknowledged expertise in the field. Johnuniq ( talk) 00:11, 8 January 2015 (UTC) reply

He's baaaaaaack!

Check out Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jagged 85. Looks like our friend has been up to his old tricks for a few months now. Indrian ( talk) 00:16, 19 January 2015 (UTC) reply

How it started

This is a witch-hunt. No coincidence that the witch-hunt started with his edit on anti-Semitism, which the article defines as Judeophobia, rather than bigotry towards Semites, which includes Arabs. Scientus ( talk) 15:46, 24 August 2015 (UTC) reply

The cleanup lists section explains how the contribution lists were generated using software. A lot of evidence has been prepared and examined—more than waving hands would be required to overcome what is shown at further information. Johnuniq ( talk) 00:03, 25 August 2015 (UTC) reply

April 2019

Ping David J Wilson + Dialectric + SteveMcCluskey + William M. Connolley and anyone still watching this page. A bunch of IPs have been hard at work at List of inventions in the medieval Islamic world and probably some others including Islamic world contributions to Medieval Europe and Mathematics in medieval Islam. Any thoughts? Johnuniq ( talk) 11:14, 27 April 2019 (UTC) reply

Argh, yes, I did wonder. But lacked the strength of will to poke too closely. Some of it got reverted out again, yes? William M. Connolley ( talk) 18:46, 27 April 2019 (UTC) reply
I think most of it is gone due to work by Dragoon17 who has been going through the cleanup pages. I will check what's happened later with some diffs from months ago. Perhaps any other outbreaks could be noted here. I noticed some recent possibly dubious edits at History of physics and Speed of sound. Johnuniq ( talk) 23:58, 27 April 2019 (UTC) reply
There's been "activity" on many pages in the past three weeks, all from IPs that are just in use for a single day. The ones I happened to notice while going through the additions on on List of inventions in the medieval Islamic world are Academic degree, Ijazah, Doctorate, Zosimos of Panopolis, Factory, Jury, Jury trial, History of statistics, Sulfuric acid, Timeline of probability and statistics, Statistics, History of probability, Crankshaft, Camshaft, Occasionalism, Crime fiction, Detective fiction, History of crime fiction, Inertia, Mechanics, Flywheel, History of classical mechanics, Theory of impetus, Hand cannon, Inhalational anaesthetic, Caravel and probably dozens of others I haven't seen yet. I haven't gone through each change yet, but in general the edits are either largely copy-and-pastes of older material or reworking the same base text and keeping the sources of the old edits. Usually one paragraph or so is copied and pasted onto multiple related pages. It's not the first time this has happened, I noticed going through the cleanup pages that he had another mini flare-up in 2017 and a couple more before that. It's probably impossible to fix all problems due to this user's persistence and method of editing to be honest. Dragoon17 ( talk) 04:26, 28 April 2019 (UTC) reply
Physics in the medieval Islamic world was active, too. With the IP-hopping, I don't see an easy or automatic way to stop this, but will keep reverting when I see similar edits. Dialectric ( talk) 14:23, 29 April 2019 (UTC) reply
How confident are you that the IPs are Jagged? I was thinking of listing them at the sockpuppet noticeboard (see SPI archive). That would not achieve anything as there is so much IP switching, but it would help in the long term by documenting the persistence of the disruption. Johnuniq ( talk) 23:52, 29 April 2019 (UTC) reply
And it seems Arab Agricultural Revolution also. The edits are as Dragoon17 says. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 13:23, 30 April 2019 (UTC) reply

Probable IPs

Following are IPs who have recently posted material in the Jagged 85 style. This is from the articles listed in #April 2019 above.

EdJohnston recently blocked 175.114.190.43 ( talk · contribs) and 124.213.172.194 ( talk · contribs) as open proxies. I'm wondering whether to raise this at SPI. Any thoughts or additional IPs? Johnuniq ( talk) 07:08, 2 May 2019 (UTC) reply

If you do decide to file at SPI, be sure to request what you'd like them to do. Running checkuser is unlikely to be possible or justified. Rangeblocks seem impractical. Either tell them you are filing this for the record, or just alert the checkusers and clerks to be alert for this type of behavior in the future. Every individual IP I have looked at so far was from South Korea or Japan. It is possible that all of them may be open proxies if someone does investigate. It is typical to list IPs at WP:OP if you want them to be looked into. The two that I blocked so far were based on the results of ipqualityscore, which I trust is reliable enough for this use. An editor who can advise about proxies is User:Zzuuzz. EdJohnston ( talk) 17:15, 2 May 2019 (UTC) reply
I don't know much about who might be editing, but about the IPs - the ones that I've looked at are open VPNs ( VPNGate or similar). Unfortunately these have a few characteristics, some of which seem to have been already identified: fairly rapid switching; quite numerous; short lifetimes; difficult to preempt; and not so easy to detect even afterwards. They will often (but not always) be in South Korea or Japan, and sometimes (not always) get picked up at WP:OPD (as 'anonymizer'). A few blocks will never hurt, but don't rely on them. -- zzuuzz (talk) 17:57, 2 May 2019 (UTC) reply
Thanks all. Any SPI would be for the record. I'll ponder that. Johnuniq ( talk) 23:29, 2 May 2019 (UTC) reply

I just wanted to add a few others with a similar pattern that I've noticed as I've gone through the pages listed in Jagged's top edits. All but three are major edits. These aren't all of them, but they are the bulk of what I found for pages that he contributed significantly to. It's a lot, but it could be worse... and fortunately, a lot of the other top pages are semi-protected, which insulted them from this.

I don't really have any suggestions on what to do about it, but I'm just posting it here for the record. The number of edits is at least manageable (compared to the several thousand pages on the original cleanup), and several of the IPs were used to repeatedly insert the same material after other uses removed it, as on Hand cannon. So for now, the "outbreak" is something that can be handled. Dragoon17 ( talk) 04:17, 3 May 2019 (UTC) reply

June 2019

List_of_inventions_in_the_medieval_Islamic_world has recently seen a bunch of material drawing from low quality sources either written or restored from some old version. I doubt the edits are coming from Jagged directly, but the claims and sourcing are very similar, so possibly from article history prior to cleanup. Dialectric ( talk) 15:49, 29 June 2019 (UTC) reply

Possible Jagged_85 sock

Hi, it's been recently suggested to me that Maestro2016 is a Jagged_85 sock. After spending an evening looking at it, I'm fairly convinced. See, for example, this edit [35] which turns the source's "earnings were comparable" into "earned more". See also this edit: [36] which cherry picks figures from boxofficemojo, adds them to a different, unreliable source, and comes up with a figure much higher than the figure boxofficemojo gives for the total worldwide gross. All of which is very reminiscent of what Jagged_85 did on Computer Games articles. I've also compared the Talk pages and there are definite stylistic similarities. I guess I'll prepare something more detailed when I have the time. Feel free to chip in if you have the energy. Merlinme ( talk) 23:23, 14 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Thanks, I will have a look. Johnuniq ( talk) 07:49, 15 May 2020 (UTC) reply
It was originally suggested to me that Maestro2016's edits on the MOSFET article were suspicious. See this diff of Maestro2016's initial edits on the article: [37] Note how "In 1959, Dawon Kahng and Martin M. (John) Atalla at Bell Labs invented the metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) as an offshoot to the patented FET design" becomes "In 1959, Dawon Kahng and Martin Atalla at Bell Labs invented the MOSFET, building on the earlier FET design." Note how "The basic principle of this kind of field-effect transistor (FET) was first patented by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925" has text added: "However, this early FET design was not practical." This text (downplaying the initial patent) is sourced to invent.org [38], which says: "Dawon Kahng was an inventor of the first practical field-effect transistor, a device that controls electronic signals by switching them on or off or amplifying them. While the field-effect transistor had been theorized for many years, Kahng and his colleague Martin Atalla were the first to build a working version, making use of Atalla's new method of coating a silicon wafer with an insulating layer of silicon oxide so that electricity could reliably penetrate to the conducting silicon below a process called surface passivation that became critical to the semiconductor industry." Does that source support the text? It's debatable. It looks like synthesis to me; the reference essentially says the principles had been understood for years but Atalla and Kahng were the first to make a working version. It does not specifically criticise the 1925 patent holder for 'not making a practical version'. This is the first set of edits Maestro2016 made on the MOSFET article. Mastro2016 has made approximately 1,000 further edits to the MOSFET article since then. Merlinme ( talk) 10:12, 15 May 2020 (UTC) reply
Here's the diff of the next bunch of Mastro2016 edits to MOSFET: [39] Note addition of text "A breakthrough came with the work of Egyptian engineer Mohamed M. Atalla in the late 1950s" which is sourced to this: [40] Reference actually says: "The first long-awaited breakthrough came from Atalla and Kahng at Bell labs." Note how source goes on to describe the importance of the work of Deal, Grove, Sarace, Klein, Faggin but for some reason Maestro2016 only chooses to concentrate on the work of "Egyptian engineeer" Mohammad Atalla. Note how source actually calls him "John Atalla", doesn't mention Atalla's nationality (which is described in his Wiki article as "Egyptian-American"), and for some reason Kahng appears to have been sidelined. For comparison, this source says: "So, who discovered MOS? Although conceptually simple, it took the contributions of numerous scientists and engineers over nearly half a century to turn the idea into a practical device." [41]
Note addition of this ref, to support the claim that MOSFET provides the building block of silicon integrated circuits: [42] Apart from having doubts over whether that is a good source to use for such a bold claim, source actually says: "This MOSFET is now the basis of almost all silicon integrated circuits"
Note the blizzard of references saying things like "perhaps the most important invention", "Arguably the most important device", which of course becomes "most important invention", "most important device", etc. Edit says: "Advances in MOS technology has been the most important contributing factor in the rapid rise of internet access bandwidth in telecommunications networks, with online bandwidth doubling every 18 months, from bits per second to terabits per second." Reference appears to be an abstract from a 2009 workshop. [43] Abstract says: "this meteoric increase in bandwidth has been made possible by three key developments over the last 60 years. The first of these was the demonstration of the point-contact bipolar transistor in 1947 by Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley which started the solid-state revolution. This was followed by the demonstration of the MOS Field-Effect-Transistor by Kahng and Atalla in 1960. The second key contributor to this bandwidth explosion was the development of Information Theory as enunciated by Claude Shannon in 1948. Once in place, this provided a firm theoretical underpinning to understand the trade-offs between signal-to-noise ratio, bandwidth and error-free transmission in the presence of noise. The third key development which ignited this fire was the invention of laser by Schawlow and Townes in 1958 with a working demonstration in 1960. Serious efforts to transform this understanding into high-performance lightwave systems started by the designing of integrated electronics using MOS technology around 1980. However, initial attempts at boosting receiver sensitivity and data-rates was seriously hampered by a lack of understanding of the noise performance of the MOS device. Speaker’s contributions in this area not only led to a deeper understanding of the noise behavior of MOS devices but also produced an order of magnitude improvement in their performance. This set the stage for MOS to become the technology of choice for lightwave and now low-cost wireless terminal applications. The ubiquitous nature of cell phones is a testimony to these key developments in the early 80’s. In this talk, starting from smoke signals at millibits per second, we will trace these events from a historical perspective to see how these key technologies lead to the development of modern wireless and optical networks of terabit capacity with petabits looming in sight." So in other words the slightly dubious source actually emphasises three separate breakthroughs in modern bandwidth advances, starting over a decade before the first MOSFET, rather than the claim "Advances in MOS technology has been the most important contributing factor".
I think that's about as much as I've got time and energy for right now. I assume I'm not the only person who can see some striking similarities here. Merlinme ( talk) 11:23, 15 May 2020 (UTC) reply
That diff is huge, but anyway, working my way down the more obvious abuses of sources: "The MOSFET was the basis for Nobel Prize winning breakthroughs such as the quantum Hall effect [44] and the charge-coupled device (CCD), [45] yet there was never any Nobel Prize given for the MOSFET itself. [46]" The first reference, for quantum Hall effect, says "The 1959 invention of the MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor) allowed physicists to study electron behavior in a nearly ideal 2D gas." So yes MOSFET was part of the basis for the 1980 Nobel prize winning work, but so was, for example, the discovery of electricity, or quantum physics. The CCD reference may actually be fair enough. The reference for 'no Nobel Prize was given for the MOSFET itself' implies in a couple of fairly throwaway background paragraphs that Heil and Lilienfield should have been recognised for their early patents in the Nobel prize for the invention of the transistor, and Atalla and Kang, were 'also not recognised' for their report which led to the commercialization of MOSFETs. Note how the Wikipedia article now more or less implies that Atalla should have been given a Nobel prize for inventing the MOSFET.
We then get this: "In 2018, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences which awards the science Nobel Prizes acknowledged that the invention of the MOSFET by Atalla and Kahng was one of the most important inventions in microelectronics and in information and communications technology (ICT)." Which... could not be strictly described as untrue, but is certainly implying it is rather more than it is. The article makes it sound like the Academy agreed that they should have given Atallan and Kahng a Nobel prize. If you follow the reference you find this, at the bottom of the section on "Jack S. Kilby – (co-)inventor of the integrated circuit": "Microelectronics has continued to evolve with the integrated circuit as the driving force. Other important inventions include the prevailing MOS-FET (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) by D. Kahng and M.M. Atalla and the microprocessor by T. Hoff." It is literally half a sentence, a 'see also' at the bottom of an article about someone completely different.
Later we have this, which looks like a copyright violation: "The MOSFET is by far the most widely used transistor in both digital circuits and analog circuits, and it is the backbone of modern electronics. A common use in analog circuits is the construction of differential amplifiers, used as input stages in op-amps, video amplifiers, high-speed comparators, and many other analog circuits. [47]" Source says: "The MOSFET is by far the most widely used transistor in both digital and analog circuits, and it is the backbone of modern electronics. One of the most common uses of the MOSFET in analog circuits is the construction of differential amplifiers. The latter are used as input stages in op-amps, video amplifiers, high-speed comparators, and many other analog-based circuits." It's also an odd source (pdf from an engineering course) for some big claims.
Finally, for now, we have what looks to me like classic Jagged_85, where a new and improved but historically non-existent calculator has been created by confusing two sources. "In 1965, the Victor 3900 desktop calculator was the first MOS LSI calculator, with 29 MOS LSI chips. [48]" The referenced url doesn't work properly, but is for the sharp_qt-8d: [49] Quote from the source: "The first calculator to use MOS LSI (Metal Oxide Semiconductor, Large Scale Integration) integrated circuits." The Wikipedia MOSFET article is actually talking about the Victor 3900 calculator however, so the reference should be this: [50] Quote: "The first calculator using integrated circuits, 1965... uses 29 MOS integrated circuits". The Sharp is from 1970 and is explicitly described as the first MOS LSI calculator, so the 1965 Victor cannot have 29 MOS LSI circuits. But the MOSFET article still cheerfully says that the Victor 3900 was the first MOS LSI calculator, with 29 MOS LSI chips.
The sources describe a 1965 calculator which is the first to use integrated circuits, 29 MOS circuits to be precise, and a 1970 calculator which was the first to use MOS LSI circuits, five of them to be precise. The Wikipedia article as edited by Maestro2016 describes an entirely mythical 1965 calculator which uses 29 MOS LSI circuits. Merlinme ( talk) 15:10, 15 May 2020 (UTC) reply
I also note that, since I created this entry, there has been some interesting Maestro2016 contributions. Since this section was created, Maestro has apparently started reverting their own edits on various articles, and has blanked their own Talk page archive. [51] That is, the archived Talk page where they were warned by something like twelve different editors for abuse of sources. Merlinme ( talk) 16:56, 15 May 2020 (UTC) reply

I was looking for an example of a history article which Maestro2016 had edited, I thought there had to be more somewhere. Lo and behold I found this little gem: Talk:Mughal_Empire/Archive_2#Indrajit_Ray_misinterpreted. User:Worldbruce reverted Mastro2016's edit to the Mughal Empire article and created a Talk page entry, saying "The highlighted additions misrepresent the source" and then explains in detail why.

I think I'm done here, I'll prepare a sockpuppet case. Unless anyone else has any serious doubt that this is a Jagged_85 sock? Merlinme ( talk) 23:13, 15 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Maestro2016 investigation opened

WP:Sockpuppet_investigations/Jagged_85


Possible Jagged_85 sock in 2021

I recently noted unusual article overlap from User:Zombie_gunner - ( interactions tool) including a shared interest in, and multiple edits to, India–Japan relations, History of gunpowder, and Maurya Empire. Dialectric ( talk) 20:17, 7 March 2021 (UTC) reply

what you are proposing doesnt make any sense/logic, the time gap between edits is 8-12 years, why would somebody make a false account to make edits for articles the user hasn't been interest for a decade now, not to mention divergent areas of editing, in comparison you have made edits on topics which the user under discussion made only minutes ago. ( interactions tool), So based on your own logic, you seem to be more fitting for your criteria here. Zombie gunner ( talk) 21:14, 7 March 2021 (UTC) reply
Feel free to open a case on me at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jagged 85. 90% or more of my overlapping edits were cleaning up Jagged 85's false information and misused citations. If your overlap is also do to your cleaning up Jagged 85's false additions, that will become clear as I look into your edits further. Dialectric ( talk) 21:31, 7 March 2021 (UTC) reply
I'm just saying that your accusations dont make sense much, if you are accusing me of being this user's sock, you should have much better evidences then mere few matched articles. Here's another sock for you ( interactions tool) Zombie gunner ( talk) 21:50, 7 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Jagged_85 and classical mechanics

To Johnuniq, William M. Connolley, Dialectric, Chiswick Chap and anybody still interested in cleanup. I noticed tons of Jagged-85 material was reintroduced few years ago into several articles related to classical mechanics, like Timeline of classical mechanics, History of gravitational theory, History of classical mechanics, Mechanics, Aristotelian physics and History of physics. It was not reverted. Not sure what to do, should I just delete them or try to clean up. I tried cleaning up a bit, but there is a lot of material, some using hard-to-check or very obscure sources. DMKR2005 ( talk) 16:37, 30 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Jagged85 had a documented history of frequently misusing and misquoting obscure sources. When such sources are tracked down, they often do not support the content. Because of this tendency, with Jagged85 material more than with other content on the encyclopedia, I suggest removing entirely all extraordinary claims cited to difficult to verify / offline sources, per WP:EXCEPTIONAL which says in part 'Surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources' are a red flag. Dialectric ( talk) 21:22, 30 May 2021 (UTC) reply
@ DMKR2005: Thanks for your work. I changed your comment to use wikilinks rather than external links, and I put some notes at Talk:Timeline of classical mechanics#Jagged cleanup. I'll try to look at the others later and think about the text remaining from Jagged. Johnuniq ( talk) 03:16, 31 May 2021 (UTC) reply
History of gravitational theory is listed at Cleanup1b where it has been marked as cleaned. I had a look at the diffs and it appears that it has been cleaned satisfactorily. All muslimheritage.com refs have been removed from that article but I see that it is still used in lots more. I'll have a go at listing what articles contain that link and post it here later. Johnuniq ( talk) 05:15, 31 May 2021 (UTC) reply
There are 179 articles that link to muslimheritage.com, listed in my sandbox ( permalink). Johnuniq ( talk) 07:37, 31 May 2021 (UTC) reply
Thanks, but there are far more problems than the use of muslimheritage.com. In particular in History of gravitational theory article changes were introduced in august 2019 by * 58.140.126.17 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and * 42.151.44.108 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), whom I highly suspect of being Jagged-85 sock. For instance the article describes al-Baghdādī contribution as "He also gave an explanation for the gravitational acceleration of falling bodies. He proposed an explanation of the acceleration of falling bodies by the accumulation of successive increments of power with successive increments of velocity", referencing Crombie page 67. I checked Crombie and he does not say anything like it there. There is also a few hard-to-check sources like Gutman, Oliver (2003). Pseudo-Avicenna, Liber Celi Et Mundi, being used for extraodinary claim. I feel there is also an issue with using Rozhanskaya and Levinova, since they are making pretty extraodinary claim which contradicts what I've read about history of mechanics. DMKR2005 ( talk) 16:11, 31 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Maestro2016 blocked

Just an FYI— Maestro2016 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), a prolific editor who frequently edited video game, technology, and Eastern history-related topics, has been blocked ( [52]) as a sock of Jagged 85 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Given how active and prolific Maestro2016 was, we've likely got a lot of cleanup on our hands. Also be on the lookout for editing flurries from anonymous IP addresses, potential block evasion. JOE BRO 64 19:03, 25 June 2022 (UTC) reply

I'm posting updates on WPVG-related Jagged/Maestro cleanup at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games#Jagged_85_cleanup. Jagged/Maestro appears to have also edited a lot of Indian film-related articles and lists, a topic I am not at all well-versed in so I can't really say I can go through those. JOE BRO 64 12:26, 27 June 2022 (UTC) reply
Thanks TheJoebro64. I started cleaning up Maestro's edits a while ago.One of the main articles he contributed and that made me suspicious that he is Jagged, are Mosfet and Mohamed M. Atalla.The information from those articles then has been copied into handreds of pages all over wikipedia.Now when it is established that he is in fact Jagged 85, it is critical those articles would be trimmed if not just downright stubbed. I am going to continue clean up, and hopefully remove all erroneous information. DMKR2005 ( talk) 14:11, 27 June 2022 (UTC) reply
I don't know about socks or use of references, but I have noticed that Maestro2016 often adds content with too much detail, compared to the rest of an article. For History of radio, which covers the whole over 100 years in one article, and has a small discussion about vacuum tubes, there was added a much longer discussion on one very specific, and not especially common, technique. I started a discussion in talk, but there was no other interest (until now). The material could be completely correct and cited, but still be wrong for the article. Gah4 ( talk) 01:07, 8 August 2022 (UTC) reply
I realize that I'm very late to the 'party', but I have to say that I am astonished by the amount of damage this editor/identity has imposed on Wikipedia. I ran across the issue when randomly coming across the BLP for Mohamed M. Atalla. Hundreds of consecutive edits, large and small, rendering it a full-time job just to verify a single article. And a job I can't even contemplate starting due to the time committment involved. I've made some minor changes to the article in hopes of making a few things clearer, but that's all I can muster.
ONE article. More than 160,000 edits between the two identities. Unbelievably believable. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 23:09, 21 April 2024 (UTC) reply
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