User talk:ScienceApologist

I have a simple two to three step process for refactoring comments that seem to anyone to be uncivil:

1. You need to provide a specific reference to specific wording. A diff or link is a good start, but you need to quote exactly what part of the wording is uncivil and why. Is it an adjective? A particular phrase? etc. (For example, "I thought it was uncivil when you said 'there are dozens of isochron methods' here.")
2. You will need to be abundantly clear as to how the exact wording is perceived by you to be uncivil towards you personally and why you consider it to be uncivil. (For example, "When I was being persecuted in the Maltese riots of 1988, the favored phrase of the police as they shot us with their water cannons was 'There are dozens of isochron methods!' The phrase still haunts me to this day.")
3. Provide an alternative wording that provides the same information without the perceived incivility. This is not a necessary step, but would be helpful. (For example, "Instead of saying that phrase, could you just say 'Scientists use a large number of radioisotope ratios to allow them to date rocks.'? This phrase does not carry the loaded baggage that I associate with the wording you wrote but seems to have the same meaning.")

Once you provide at least information relating to the first two steps, I will usually immediately refactor. The third step is optional.

Some thoughts

I noticed you imported your en.WP userpage here, and that many of things you suggest there are really inappropriate here. A POV violation on Wikisource would be to create a page of selected quotations from the Bible that are supposed to demonstrate some view but creating a page with the straight up contents of Genesis from the King James Bible is allowed. Or if you prefer your canon in Middle English; that is here as well. We have all sorts of texts that have very strong points of view left unchallenged. Even points of view that no living person espouses. Which leads to well-meaning "corrections" like this. But we don't mitigate such strong points of view, we offer these texts as they were published. It is just what we collect here. I imagine that you don't really have any intention of following through on Wikisource with what the sort of editing your userpage suggests. I imagine that you just copied it over without a great deal of thought as how those statements might or might not apply here, because it was quick and easy. But if you have doubts about what is appropriate here please feel free to ask. Welcome to Wikisource.--BirgitteSB 02:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Since Wikisource is a collection of primary sources, the issue is one of novelty and original research rather than anything else. Anything related to analysis simply doesn't apply because no analysis occurs in Wikisource. I'm here as a pitstop mostly, though I respect the goals of this project. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:00, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

My position

Hi. I just wanted to drop you a note to make it clear that I am not opposed generally to your goal here, but have raised concerns about the process over at W:talk:optics. It's nothing personal—my concerns are related to principle and process, not personality or content. I was sad to see that you got banned on Wikipedia. I appreciate your past efforts at keeping science articles pseudoscience-free. Looking forward to seeing you edit there again...--Srleffler (talk) 03:02, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

If it were up to me, I'd be unblocked and free to edit over there. But it's not up to me. Thanks for your support, and please give critiques of the article. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:10, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I skimmed through the first part of it, making minor adjustments as I saw them. I saw some small issues I don't have time to work on right now, though—mostly cases where the wording could be improved. In some cases the existing wording is inaccurate or insufficiently precise. All stuff that can be fixed. A bigger concern is that it may be too long. It may be necessary to summarize more, leaving topics to be covered more fully in other articles.--Srleffler (talk) 04:40, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

All good points. Inaccurate and imprecise wording must be dealt with immediately. If you don't have time, you can leave a quick note on the talk page and I'll try to fix it. The "summary" issue is one that is difficult to decide upon. We might decide to content fork, especially, geometrical and physical optics sections which are the longest and most in-depth sections and refer to articles which are generally pretty poor themselves. My main goal was to make sure every important topic of optics I could think of was mentioned and sufficiently explained so it could stand on its own. This is not necessarily the ideal situation for an article, though the length is not incredibly prohibitive (longer FAs do exist). Anyway, I'm amenable to this. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Introduction to optics?

The more I think about "Optics", the more I am convinced we need an "Introduction to optics" article for the layperson (see Wikipedia:Introduction to evolution, Wikipedia:Introduction to viruses, and Wikipedia:Introduction to general relativity for samples). Such an article would introduce a only a few key terms and concepts and focus on explaining them in the clearest language possible for the lay person. I'm sure you've seen scientific literacy surveys, such as the one put out by the NSF. I am forced to wonder if the people who couldn't correctly answer the basic questions in that survey could really follow the current "Optics" article. Just a thought. Awadewit (talk) 04:40, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. However, I don't know if I'm the best equipped to write such an article. Will think about it. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:14, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. We all have our strengths. Awadewit (talk) 02:07, 26 April 2009 (UTC)