Template talk:Intelligent Design: Difference between revisions

I yanked the edit button, which made the tamplate much tighter.--ghost 30 June 2005 14:26 (UTC)

ordering

what's the logic? --goethean ॐ 19:46, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

The logic is that the Intelligent design movement is driven by the Discovery Institute, who's "science" branch is the Center for Science and Culture, which authored and is guided by the Wedge strategy, which advocates the Teach the controversy campaign. FeloniousMonk 23:48, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

id="toc"

The parameter id="toc" causes this template to be suppressed whenever the user has tables of content suppressed. As far as I can tell, none of the similar infoboxes choose to be suppressed that way. If my own user experience is typical, I want to suppress the system-generated tables of contents at the top of the article because they get in my way and don't add materially to my reading experience. But the infobox of related links is useful and should show.

I don't know what id is appropriate, though, so I just took the parameter out completely. Hope that doesn't break something else... Rossami (talk) 23:33, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Seems to be fine. FeloniousMonk 23:48, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Link to Creationism

User:FeloniousMonk has objected to giving this template a prominent position on the Intelligent design article (which, one would thought, is the only article on all of Wikipedia where it is, by definition, blatantly obvious that the template belongs and should be most emphasized), on the grounds that it is "more specific" than the {{creationism2}} template (which, I would have thought, is one of the many reasons why the ID template is much more relevant and important than the creationism one! o_O;). My attempts to work out a compromise have all been ignored and dismissed out-of-hand—I've attempted to move the creationism mere inches lower so as to give room to the even more clearly relevant ID template on the ID article, but FeloniousMonk has dismissed even the possibility of change with "don't rock the boat" status-quo-worshiping silliness, ignoring the contents of all of my arguments at Talk:Intelligent_design#Template_placement for moving the two templates slightly for the sake of the readers' benefit. I've attempted to add a link to Creationism, which, based on FeloniousMonk's arguments (where he's said that we should go out of our way to emphasize that ID is a thinly-veiled creationist movement), he should be strongly in favor of even if he opposes moving the ID template to the top of the ID page, yet apparently, bizarrely enough, he reverted the change just to spite me despite it being a blatantly obviously, clear change to make (based entirely on his own comments!), on the assumption that anything done by anyone who disagrees with you must be part of some sneaky, nefarious tactic to get what he wants in the end. Positively the worst example of failing to assume good faith I've ever seen in my two years on Wikipedia. -Silence 04:09, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Could it be that while ID is a subset of Creationism, Creationism is not a subset of ID?

BTW, AGF works both way -- I see no such assumption on your part. Oh wait! could that be because you're the victim and FM is the oppressor? Oppressed editors of the world unite? Please, the assumption of good faith, like respect, is earned. •Jim62sch• 09:27, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

• Please refrain from the blatant incivility. If you're going to be uncivil, at least be sneakier about it so people have a harder time pinning you down. :P
• In any case, you reply is a non sequitur, and implies that you did not read anything that I actually wrote above, or just have not been paying attention. That ID is a subset of creationism is exactly the reason why we have only the Creationism template on Creationism, and both the ID and Creationism templates on ID; but that's hardly a remotely compelling or reasonable argument for putting the Creationism template at a higher priority on the ID article—what's most important in an article about ID is ID itself, not creationism! I have never argued for removing the creationism template from the ID article; all I've pointed out is that ID is more important to ID than creationism is to ID. That's simply a truism, so I'm baffled at why so many people have (feebly) attempted to argue against that simple statement. If we were having a discussion about ID and Creationism-related images, rather than ID and Creationism-related templates, the exact same principles would come into play: the creationism image might be broader, but the ID image is much more relevant in the ID article itself, so while we can include both images in the article, the ID image is the one that should probably go at the top. For the same reason, although the ID template and Creationism template are both relevant to ID, the ID template is much more relevant to ID, so including it at the very top of the article (and the creationism template only slightly below it) makes much more sense.
• Moreover, none of that is relevant to the question of whether creationism should be linked to from the ID template, though FeloniousMonk mistakenly conflated the two issues, and now you have followed in the footsteps of his error in your zeal to attack me. All that matters with respect to the actual issue of the minor edit I made to the template is whether or not a link to the creationism is appropriate on the ID template, and considering that ID is already linked to on the creationism template, I see absolutely no reason not to have a link to the parent article on this one! Several of the ID articles, like Discovery Institute and Center for Science and Culture, don't use the creationism template, just the ID one, so at the very least for the sake of those articles, it simply makes sense to provide a link to the parent article, creationism, in the template. I created the link to Creationism in exactly the same style that other, similar templates do, such as Template:Humanism providing a link to Politics at its top.
• The fact that I took the time to make an edit specifically in line with exactly FeloniousMonk was arguing on Talk:Intelligent design (that we need to be completely explicit about the fact that ID is a form of creationism) and it was blindly reverted without any justification is just amusingly telling in that it provides a great example of the fact that FeloniousMonk and several of the other editors at ID are reverting my changes on autopilot: they are refraining from thinking about, considering, or discussing any of the edits I've recommended or made, they simply revert them based on their false assumptions about the editor, completely ignoring the various merits of faults of the edits. That is unWikipedianlike: you should be ashamed, sirs. >:O Or don't be, I don't care, but let's at least quit the silly, counterproductive revert warring so we can actually get down to improving these pages with some discussion and edits. If you object to a change I made, why not simply say what you object about it? Thus far, nobody has.
• Secondly, I find your mischaracterization of my arguments and status amusing, but rather shallow. I have never claimed to be "oppressed", nor do I vilify User:FeloniousMonk (in fact, he's been one of my favorite editors in the past, despite this unfortunate misstep of his), nor even you, despite your consistently rude and antagonistic behavior. I have no doubt that both of you are acting in good faith—you can act in good faith while still failing to assume good faith in others. Everyone makes mistakes: I'm interested, not in casting blame, but in correcting your mistaken assumptions about my character, my edits, and my behavior, so we can move on free of such misconceptions and resume the productive edits to ID I was in the middle of. Incidentally, you are also utterly mistaken about the nature of Wikipedia in claiming that "assumption of good faith, like respect, is earned"—good faith is not earned from the very beginning. That's the meaning of "assume good faith": you assume good faith before you are sure of what the user's intentions are! If you refuse to assume good faith until it's absolutely, 100% proven to you in a court of law, then you are explicitly violating WP:AGF by not "assuming" the best in people, but rather the worst, and only changing your mind after they've jumped through hoops to demonstrate their loyalty to you. The problem with such an assumption of bad faith is that it's often a self-fulfilling prophecy: when you treat everyone new you interact with with paranoid hostility and aggression until they've proven themselves to you, you'll inevitably bring out the worst, not the best, in people. On the other hand, it is true that assuming good faith does have limits (such as blatant vandalism)—but when it's dropped, it's dropped after a user has proven to be acting in bad faith, not before! I have not acted in bad faith in any action I have taken with respect to the intelligent design page; please retract your blind accusation and apologize (or at least drop the goading, acidic attitude for one minute) so we can resume civil discussion. -Silence 10:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

It was sarcasm, not incivility. And in all honesty, if you continue to go against long-established consensus on the article and continue to write book-length missives, not much is going to change. You may very well have some good ideas, but it's hard to find them through all the verbiage. I know I'm not the first person on Wiki to point this out to you.

One comment I'll reply to quickly: my answer was hardly a nonsequitur -- the set, creationism, comes first in the pecking order, the subset, ID, second. •Jim62sch• 20:31, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

As for the rest...no one is reverting you on autopilot, believe it or not, people actually do take the time to read the edits.

As for AGF, I prefer a bit of neutrality in the beginning, assuming nothing -- but that's just my personality: as FM pointed out (and I tend to agree), AGF is not a suicide pact.

I made no blind accusation either; instead let us think about this for a moment. Both FM and I revert your edit (although for slightly different reasons -- mine is explained twice on this page), and you immediate say "I was acting in good faith" (or words to that effect). This protestation has tended in the past to connote, "I'm acting in good faith, but you are not".

Now, in your case, that very well may not have been what you meant. I've run across you on other articles, and when I saw you had edited ID, I though, oh, OK, cool -- you see, I actually think you're a good editor, although, as I said, your explanations on talk are just too long. However, when I read the edits I was astounded by how you'd gone about making the changes and by the edits themselves. There was no discussion, no trying to gain consensus, acting as if there was consensus when there clearly was not, etc. The edits themselves did not improve the article (not that they destroyed it either), and many of them were very reminiscent of items we've hashed over repeatedly in the past.

As I said, you may have some very good ideas for the article...try to introduce them in smaller bits, you'll find much less opposition. •Jim62sch• 20:51, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

• I apologize if I wasn't clear enough in saying "I'm acting in good faith". The point of saying "I'm acting in good faith" was not to contrast it with "You're acting in bad faith", but to contrast it with "You think that I'm acting in bad faith". As I've pointed out, I believe that all participants in this dispute are acting in good faith, and a lot of the problem is resultant from misunderstandings. However, while I assume good faith on the part of all the participants, from his actions, it seems that FeloniousMonk does not. That does not make his actions ones taken in bad faith—he is mistaken, not malicious—but it does give reason for him to be less hasty in his assumption that every new user who tries to help out on ID is an evil POV-pushing content-sneaking-in bastard. I strongly recommend that he reread Wikipedia:Assume good faith, which is an official Wikipedia policy, not a soft guideline or suggestion.
• You are mistaken in your claim that "the edits themselves did not improve the article". Although some of them may have been "hashed over" in the past, they are nonetheless necessary, and worthy of discussion again if they are a matter of dispute. What I'm disappointed by isn't that some of my edits have been disputed, it's that they haven't been criticized or picked apart, they've just been ignored and tossed in the trash! How can I discuss or rework or compromise about any of the changes I've made when everybody completely refuses to explain what's wrong with any of them? How can I attempt to build consensus on issues which noone has even raised? Even the Talk page archives are not helpful on this point; it seems that only a psychic ability would give me the power to satisfy your demands.
• By the way, to go back to the actual edit that originated this discussion: How about, instead of a link to creationism, if we provide on to Neo-Creationism? Neocreationism is a term specifically created to label the ID movement (and, more recently, its less-noteworthy siblings), so it seems silly not to include it in the ID template. The intelligent design page itself links to Neo-Creationism itself, but not in amy prominent positions, so a link from here would probably help. -Silence 17:54, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

If we decide to use the template, that'd be fine...I'm still undecided as to whether the template itself is necessary. I can see argument for and against its inclusion. •Jim62sch• 14:35, 1 July 2006 (UTC)