User talk:Brentt
Welcome to the lion's den ;-)
Hey, welcome to the AA article! I've been with it for a while, and seen my share of drama... It's nice to have another skeptic there! Thanks for going back and signing your comments on the Talk page. That makes it a lot easier to keep track of who said what!
Also, for a little background on the controversy... I haven't see any posts by Marcus in ages, but he's been very helpful in providing pro-AA material. He clearly is a fan, but he's doesn't seem adverse to the idea of including criticisms at all like some other, newer participants are.
I know that I, for one, have gotten pretty "emotionally charged", so to speak, at some points in the discussions. I've found it very helpful to then take a day or two off from this article to calm down and collect my thoughts so I don't post anything that would only lead to a virtual screaming match instead of actually being productive. The week I was on vacation with no computer access was great :-) I don't know you, so I don't know if you're totally cool and collected or prone to getting into fights. But if you stick around long enough to get steamed, I hope you take my advice and be careful in your wordings so that you don't accidentally piss off anyone who's less skilled at staying cool when tempers flare, and take breaks when things get too intense because things aren't very productive at such times.
Anyway, I'm glad to have you here! I hope I haven't come off as patronizing in any way, because that's not what my intentions are. I'm just sharing what I've learned myself though trial and error in this and other articles (and non-wikipedia debates) over the years. For all I know, you've been around the block a few times too, and don't need to be told any of this. But newcomer or veteren, it looks like you have the potential to be a great help in this article! Welcome aboard! --Icarus 19:40, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
Martin Gardner
Hello! You wrote in Scientific skepticism that Martin Gardner died recently. I couldn't find any info on that. Could you please change the Gardner article or give a source?
Thanks. --Hob Gadling 11:27, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Appeal to authority
Thanks for your note, which may not have been hostile but was certainly condescending and in fact wrong.
It is in fact a fallacy to say that "the medical community agrees that X is true; therefore it is true." It is not a fallacy to say that the medical community agrees that X is true, if it can be demonstrated that the medical community agrees that X is true. I agree that "appeal to authority" is a rather misleading term; it may be that we can agree that it would be fallacious to either make improper appeal to authority or make an appeal to improper authority.
But this is the case with all fallacies - they work because they bear a resemblance to valid arguments.
The problem with the pseudoscience article is that those who are trying to write it seem to believe that if a certain number of people, so called "experts" label something a pseudoscience, then it must be a pseudoscience. In fact, pretty much any authority on anything you can imagine has - and in all likelihood continues to be - dead wrong on some of their tenets, and any honest expert will admit as much. (Though he/she will also say the problem is that they don't know what they're wrong about and must do their best on the basis of imperfect knowledge.) --Leifern 19:52, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
I plan to avoid adding anything to the article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2005_French_riots
I don't like rumors that make a bad situation worse especialy when they are originaly spread for selfish reasons.
glad to know there are other skeptics out there.
grazon 07:09, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
American bison?
Hello; Your comments regarding the article are applicable to almost every other article in the Wikipedia. If you can point out what in particular you think needs support, we can try to address it. Else, the tag does more harm than good. Haiduc 03:11, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
I have removed your clean up tag. If you feel the style needs changing, do so (as you did with the date - which you quite inexplicably americanized). Thanks Refdoc
The article is short. The main notability is the death/murder. I am not sure what you feel needs cleaning up here. Refdoc 09:37, 13 December 2005 (UTC)