User talk:Martin Cohen

Welcome!

Welcome, new editor! We're very glad you've joined us. Here are pointers for a quick start. Also, when you get a chance, please read The Editor Role. You can look at Getting Started for other helpful introductory pages. It is essential for you as an editor to join the Citizendium-Editors (broadcast) mailing list in order to stay abreast of editor-related issues, as well as the mailing list(s) that concern your particular interests. It is also important, for project-wide matters, to join the Citizendium-L (broadcast) mailing list. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forums is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any constable for help, too. Me, for instance! Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and thank you! We appreciate your willingness to share your expertise, and we hope to see your edits on Recent changes soon. Supten Sarbadhikari 04:55, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Martin, welcome--it is great to see another philosopher here! --Larry Sanger 02:51, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Hulo Larry, and gang of editors/ authors!

Thanks for you message, glad to be here, at the best part of the project methinks. You've got the principles absolutely right, and the technology works, we just need the content now. I hadn't realised there was so much to be done before CZ reaches 'critical mass' - enough material for people to start using it as a real reference work - at which point everyone will flock here and we'll need to spend our time correcting pages rather than writing them.

I put some details of what I plan to do on the 'philosophy talk' page too, and am getting down to work straight away - we must get those key philosophers 'rolled out'!

I'm going to copy this to my own talk page as well.

Venceremos!

Martin Cohen 13:12, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Martin, i saw your note on the forum and I'd say what you are doing is exactly what we need. Good extensive first drafts to give this ball some more momentum. On the forum you should add your talk page here as a link in preferences (should appear as a hyperlink at the bottom of each message you post. it helps us cross reference comments in the forum with user pages in the wiki. Welcome, Chris Day 15:15, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Here is what you need to do. Go to the following link:

http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1195;sa=forumProfile

and paste in

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Martin_Cohen

to the signature box. Chris Day 15:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Plato and Socrates image

Martin: See my response to your query at User talk:Chris Day, it may be helpful or so I hope. Milton Beychok 02:49, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Objectivism

First, please make up your mind if you want to discuss things on a talk page or have me make edits; you earlier complained when I discussed something on the article talk page rather than making the change.

Howard, I complained before that if something should be done it was better to do it unless it is expected to be controversial. This is scarcely controversial, although being a reversion it implies a need to explain

The change I made was quite in keeping with CZ conventions on maintainability and navigation.

Are we imagining the readers are familair with/ following this rule book too? Or are we also going to use common sense?

It was appropriate to have a redirect of Objectivism to Ayn Rand. 

Right, one step forward...

Once at the Rand page, the redlink makes it obvious that there is no separate article.

It implies that there is no information on objectivism in the encylopedia. The reader looking for it specifically might be excused for not reading furhter. It is a misleading signpost. If they followed the link from Jimbo, they will be irritated and think the CZ is a 'shower'.

Perhaps someone would care to write it, or perhaps not. Nevertheless, bolding adds absolutely no information that is not given by a redirect and a redlink.

Bolding - to my mind - made the term more obvious on the page, showing that there was a degree of interest on the page in the term.

Linking to non-pages is a basic CZ convention to help identify pages to be written.

That is exactly the point. We do not need the page to be written. - there is sufficient information on the Rand page. A page 'could' be added, but until that day, objectivism is described on the Ayn Rand page. For example, if I describe Plato's theory of forms on the Plato page, it is pointless to redlink the term there, on the grounds that someday someone may write a separate page.

There is, indeed, a bot that lists "wanted pages" in order of the number of redlinks to them. I have rather substantial experience with CZ navigation and still ask and explore.

CZ policy notes advise against overuse of the redlink. I suggest it is far and away a bigger problem than people using 'bold' for emphasis.

I don't see anything that bolding accomplishes; it might have been useful, on the article talk page to have mentioned your concern.

I probably confused things by mentioning there are times where bolding a blue or red link is necessary, purely for readability, often in specialized contexts such as model numbers.

Could you help me understand the information that was added by bolding, which was not added by the redirect? Reversing edits, which seem to be technical errors, a simple correction. I suggest you drop suggestions that people are antagonistic, or at least ask before accusing. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I've asked, let's say it's just a technical dispute. Martin Cohen 10:56, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Politics of Water (and homeopathy)

Hello,

It's strange: in the forum ("Neutrality notes"), I was saying that there is a lack of philosophers (of science); of people who could help us with the demarcation problem in "controversial" scientific topics (such as the scientific basis of homeopathy) and help especially with the socio-political and mediatic pressures (sometimes/often) leading to the exclusion of controversial scientific topics and facts.

Gareth referred you to the Memory of water article. Most of it was written by myself when I was working on the Homeopathy page. I was (and still am) opposed to the exclusion of these considerations from the homeopathy article (this is precisely a demarcation issue), and thought we needed to work more on that, but, hey, I'm not an editor and there was no philosophy editor active on these issues.

I would enjoy collaborating with you on the social and mediatic forces that colour and orient the debate between the Institutions and the scientists who work on the scientific basis of hoemopathy. I also think that it is essential to be neutral when we encounter instances of fraud or misrepresentation, especially when these frauds/misrepresentations occur in the mainstream media (I am talking here about the issue with the BBC "replication" of Ennis' study and with Dana's correspondance with her).

I am curious about what the reception of your recent forum post will be

May I offer another go at 'summarising' the idea (since my first go is said to have been pretty wide of the mark?)

Is what Larry is suggesting is a box on certain pages where there are, shall we say, 'interesting' divergences of opinion (rather than more brutal ethical divides), where

• the main areas of contemporary debate are briefly summarised • relevant sociological observations about the editors are offered • and issues the page has deliberately NOT gone into are set out?

--Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 01:39, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Excellent, yes, there are potentially some very interesting insights to be gained from closer examination of scientific consensus building - do you know the term 'Cascade theory'? Let's see if we can work together on some pages. Do you want to suggest to me where I might start/ join in with ideas?

Martin Cohen 11:03, 3 December 2008 (UTC)