User talk:Jytdog/Archive 1

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Welcome!

Hello, Jytdog, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! --Edcolins (talk) 18:42, 20 April 2010 (UTC)


Citation suggestion

Thanks for your contributions to growth hormone article! If you haven't seen this yet, please check out User:Diberri's Wikipedia template filling tool (instructions). Given a PubMed ID, one can quickly produce a full citation that can be copied and pasted into a Wikipedia article. This tool can save you a lot of work and ensure that the citations are displayed in a consistent manner. Cheers. Boghog (talk) 09:46, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Some stroopwafels for you!

Keep up the good work! Arcandam (talk) 02:21, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Vitamin d

I did a revert of your recent edits, it seemed to be the best thing, the problem is that vitamin d actually isn't a vitamin(!) I would have done a partial revert but it was too complicated. Feel free to reapply your edits without this issue, sorry for any extra work.- Sheer Incompetence (talk) Now with added dubiosity! 14:37, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Sure sounds reasonable. And have changed with slight modification / condensation of the text.Doc James(talk · contribs · email) 22:59, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

thanks!Jytdog (talk) 12:39, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Those strange scripts where page numbers. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 00:51, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hey, I just made two little edits and I don't need to do anymore. Feel free to overwrite my changes, let me know when you're doing for a moment, and I'll go back in to make them. Steven Walling • talk 23:32, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

For catching that. I somehow confused them, probably because Chris Hansen made some statements on Myriad as well. Tijfo098 (talk) 23:16, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Merging GMO#Regulation with GMO-Regulation

I knew that wuz an option, and I wuzn't willing to take it, because someone reverted my deletion. I also knew that deletion might've eaten some points about regulation, and considering that the material is inherently regional, I wuzn't exactly fascinated by the job. Thanks again. 142.59.53.48 (talk) 00:14, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Jytdog. A while ago I got interested in sorting out the GM articles, but found it a hard slog and moved onto other interests. I have only just returned (actually I am not really returning yet) and noticed the large amount of work you have done in this area. Have not had a detailed look into your edits, but most of what I saw looked like an improvement and mirrors many ideas I had. So just thought I would give a bit of encouragement and offer a draft I started writing on regulation before I got bored (see User:Aircorn/Sandbox). It focuses more on the laboratory regulations and you are welcome to use any information from it if you so wish. Keep up the good work. AIRcorn (talk) 02:52, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Source

The NYT article you added to Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories in this diff predates the replaced NYT editorial by almost two years and seems to be a lot less detailed. Do you oppose including the latter (in addition)?   — C M B J   13:46, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Messages

Also, let me know if you can gain access to Factiva.   — C M B J   13:39, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
Hi Jytdog, I just wanted to say thanks for all your work on GMO articles recently - you're doing a good job! SmartSE (talk) 13:51, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

how to treat edits from students doing educational assignments

Hi Jytdog. I saw your comment on Pharaoh of the Wizards' talk page. That template means that the person who made that edit is working on that article as part of a class assignment (in the case Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, this class). So they are probably a new user, doing their best to improve the article but not necessarily experienced with the Wikipedia way of doing things. In terms of the actual edits, you don't need to treat them any differently than you would any other edits; if they don't improve the article or need to be modified, feel free to revert or aggressively modify. It's a good idea to point out your talk page on comments on the student's own talk page, though, as students often don't use their watchlists much. --Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:57, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Comment

With regard to this (which isn't me) - IIRC it's bad form to refer to "this article" within the body of the article. (That actually includes statements like "see this article," but I think that's less of an issue.) Normally you would put it in italics at the top of the article, either manually or by using a template, e.g. {{for|genetically modified organisms|Genetically modified organism}}, and you get

For genetically modified organisms, see Genetically modified organism.

If there's too much material, the other option is to make a template, e.g. Template:Evolutionary biology, which can then be placed on each one of the associated pages. I think that's what I would recommend. :-) Arc de Ciel (talk) 02:24, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the headsup and the suggestion! I put a lot a work into deconvoluting topics covered in those articles so they are clean and organized... i know that paragraph is clumsy but i wanted readers to know what to expect and where to find what they were looking for. Very open to better ways of doing it, and i hope a "good form" way! I am too unsophisticated to manage a new template. There is one for genetic engineering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Genetic_engineering but it dwells at the bottom of pages.. I don't know how to get it to the top where people see it..... thanks again! Jytdog (talk) 02:57, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
The one that I linked goes at the top of the page. I'm not very good at wiki language either, but what I generally do is open up the edit screen and experiment with something that already exists, using the Preview function to confirm what I'm doing. I didn't know that there was already a template though, so I suppose it might get deleted as a duplication - I guess using notices in italics might be best after all. :-) Arc de Ciel (talk) 03:52, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
For example, I think something like this would work (no templates necessary). This article is about the history, methods, and applications of genetic engineering. Related articles cover genetically modified organisms, crops, food, regulation, and controversies. Arc de Ciel (talk) 06:32, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
This is sticking with you - you would really like to see this changed, I guess. I am OK with that suggestion... but part of the goal was also to guide readers what to expect in each. Would you be OK if it were a bit longer and had the explanatory material? If not, I am happy to compromise with what you suggest....Jytdog (talk) 13:04, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
Not really, just noticed that you hadn't answered and trying to be helpful. :-) As above, I'm not really sure what the best option is, but I think someone will probably change it at some point. Arc de Ciel (talk) 20:16, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
I am happy to try to head this off at the pass... I will follow your suggestion. Are the italics for me, or do you think it should be posted in italics? Jytdog (talk) 22:29, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
It's usually posted in italics. To continue with the previous example, the Evolution page has two lines of italics at the top. The Manual of Style guideline is at Wikipedia:Hatnote. But actually, reading over that guideline, it says that using the italicized notes to link to related articles is discouraged, so I'm not sure what to do. Perhaps you should ask for a second opinion. :-) Arc de Ciel (talk) 23:48, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing me to the hatnote guideline. I agree, a note like this as a hatnote would definitely be out of bounds... I think I am just going to leave the paragraph. It is holding so far.. I've been watching page counts and plenty of people are reading and leaving it. And hopefully finding it useful, which is the point. By far the heaviest trafficked article is the GM food one. I expected more people to jump to controversies

Have to agree with Arc about those paragraphs. How about removing the paragraphs and replacing them with hatnotes using the {{about}} template. It would read something like this on the Genetically modified food page.

This page is about all genetically modified food. For genetically modified food crops, see Genetically modified crops. For all genetically modified organisms, see Genetically modified organisms.

In my opinion those three pages are the only ones that really need this navigational aid. The regulation and controversy articles are really just WP:Content forks and should have their own heading in the other articles and be linked using a {{main}} template. The Genetic engineering article should really just be an overview article (see WP:Summary style). One way to think of it is to imagine what topic someone is looking for when they type something into the search bar. If it could be more than one article then a hatnote may be appropriate (i.e many people equate GMOs with GM food and GM crops is a suitably large subsection of food that it is reasonable to think someone might be looking for information on one of them when typing GMO). I made the {{Genetic engineering}} template a few years ago and could make a similar one that will be displayed at the top of articles if you want (it will look similar to {{Genetics2}} which is at the top of the Genetic engineering article. AIRcorn (talk) 08:39, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts, Aircorn! It is still not clear to me that hatnotes are appropriate but if you feel strongly about it, please give it a shot. The reason why I mentioned all five articles in that little paragraph is that content from all five was mooshed across them all. (Well originally there were 4 - I created the GM crops article.) I've been checking the page hit stats here http://stats.grok.se/ from time to time and the most trafficked articles are GMOs and GM food. I am surprised that more people are not going to the GM food controversies article. But before I put the paragraph in, I kept finding that editors wanted to insert text about the controversy everywhere, and I kept having to revert and point them to content that already existed in the Controversies article, or if it was new (rare) add that content there. Afterwards, not so much. So if you change this, I very much hope that you include the Controversies article in the hatnote, at least to point it out up front to editors who really want to see that this content is in Wikipedia. Finally, as currently configured, the GMO article and the genetic engineering article are very closely related. That's why I included it. But on average a bit over 2000 people look at the GM food everyday (spikes up to 4000 some days), and people are leaving the paragraph alone. Also the GM Crop article was just assessed by the Wikipedia:WikiProject Genetics and the assessor didn't mess with it.. so those are arguments for leaving it as. But as I said, if you feel strongly about it, have at it. But please include the controversies article in it. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 11:43, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Not strongly, it is just something that I have never really come across here before. Doesn't mean other articles don't do it (shes a big place). Most articles I see seem to follow a hierarchical format. In an ideal situation genetic engineering would be the parent article (with Genetics the grandparent) and should contain sections on history, genetically modified organisms, methods, applications and regulation, objections etc with a main to longer more detailed articles. GMO should contain sections on history, crops, animals, food, methods, regulations, objections etc with mains to longer articles etc. It does get tricky with food and crops as there is a lot of overlap and not all food is crops or crops food. There is nothing wrong with adding information in more than one place if it is notable enough. That way readers should get an overview at most articles and be just a click away from the one with more detail. I am feeling a little inspired by you work so might jump back on the horse. AIRcorn (talk) 12:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Wonderful, it would be great to work with you! On what to cover in each article, hopefully you can see that I tried to create a rigorous structure where things are actually described (e.g. talk about agriculture in GM crops, talk about actual food in the food article, etc) in a focused way in various articles and sections, and used generic stubs on matter from other articles, taken from the ledes of those articles. This seems to be holding up pretty well as people read and editors pass through. But this is such an emotional issue for people and editors come by and want to drive the controversy into every section you can think of. But, it would be great to ride with you!Jytdog (talk) 13:27, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Jytdog I think your reply to Wayne in the Talk section "Possible Problems" of the article 'Genetically modified food controversies' on 29th October is one of the best-written pieces I have seen on this subject. Absolutely excellent!! Please keep it up!SylviaStanley (talk) 18:46, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

wisegeek as a reliable source

You asked about wisegeek as a reliable source.

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_95#Wisegeek_as_a_reliable_source
Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_37#Wisegeek
Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_87#Wisegeeks.com_and_Rust_Belt
Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_28#Wisegeek.com

my read is that it is generally considered very low quality/unreliable. What do you think? Before I deleted it I googled extensively and found nothing to back that up. Not even the website of the Sebewaing, Michigan chamber of commerce, which if it were true, one would think would say it. http://www.sebewaingchamber.com/ Jytdog (talk) 20:23, 2 November 2012 (UTC) amended to say "low quality" whoops)Jytdog (talk) 23:32, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I may have to agree with you now about wisegeek, but I still found a number of sources calling Sebewaing the "Sugar Beet Capital". Granted, these sources may have originally obtained their information from Wikipedia, so I'm not sure what to do.--Asher196 (talk) 23:14, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Notice of Dispute resolution discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute in which you may have been involved. Content disputes can hold up article development, therefore we request your participation in the discussion to help find a resolution. The thread is "Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Monsanto and Wikileaks". Thank you! --Guy Macon (talk) 11:26, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Comment

Please don't get frustrated - this is how Wikipedia discussion usually works. You've been doing a lot of really important work, and I hope you carry on. Just remember to assume good faith, focus on content, and argue based on policy whenever possible. :-) Arc de Ciel (talk) 09:02, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!

I just wanted to say that your additions to the Mayo v. Prometheus article are truly fantastic. Keep up the great work! Verkhovensky (talk) 16:13, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Solid

I just saw your work on canola oil. Nice, nuanced, ref-based edits. Excellent stuff, kudos. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 02:19, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Jatropha

Please comment at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jatropha#Why_the_merge.3F --Pjacobi (talk) 07:01, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Unrelated

Hi,
I think that Arianmoshefi and ToreBKrudtaa are different people. You might have noticed a person's name all over the website which ToreBKrudtaa links to most frequently; Arianmoshefi did not link to that site at all. More generally, I think there are other differences in the content they added. bobrayner (talk) 11:57, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

A bowl of strawberries for you!

Thanks for improving the patent article! Edcolins (talk) 21:12, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
You're welcome! --Edcolins (talk) 22:12, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate your help . . .

Just a note to acknowledge and appreciate your help with my students' projects. They are trying to make their learning matter beyond the classroom and supportive editors like you certainly promote the success of the WP Education projects. TomHaffie (talk) 00:33, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Seralini. Undue Weight.

Everything else in the "Health" section are positions by major organizations so to provide the position of just Seralini seems like undue weight. The statement itself may be true but there should be a better reliable source for it. BlackHades (talk) 21:23, 22 December 2012 (UTC) If you can find a better source please feel free to use it!Jytdog (talk) 21:24, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Obstacles to Human Studies in GM food

The new section on obstacles to human testing that you added, I feel like instead of being in the Health lede, it should have its own section under Health. Perhaps titled "Human testing" or "Human testing obstacles" or something like that. What do you think? BlackHades (talk) 23:27, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! I half expected it to get deleted or shortened... it was something I had been wanting to do some research on and I did that.Jytdog (talk) 02:46, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

trust of regulators re. gmo

For this conversation - The wikileaks cable shows the extreme political clout of the GMO movement. This link: http://www.biointegrity.org/list.html Shows regulatory problems.Pottinger's cats (talk) 00:05, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

On the organic food page, you state: " in past few months I have worked a lot on the genetically engineered crops/food/controversy/regulatory pages, as well as Monsanto's -- mostly getting rid of a lot of negative BS that anti-GMO forces had piled in, and trying to add high quality, well sourced information - keeping whatever of the original negative content I could find reliable sources for. The work has led me here. I have no bias one way or the other in all this except to include content that is scientifically well grounded and is stated in a NPOV way as per the 5 pillars. Some folks may consider the following a bias: I trust regulators and I don't accept (what i consider to be) conspiracy theories about dramatic regulatory capture of food regulatory agencies."

I wish that regulators really were independent, but there is demonstrable corporate control of policy in this realm. The following UK Guardian article shows the extent of this, that a US embassy cable recommended drawing up list of countries for 'retaliation' over opposition to genetic modification: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/03/wikileaks-us-eu-gm-crops

If you want a challenge to your views on this, see the following, particularly chapter 2, regarding the case of Putzai: http://www.scribd.com/doc/64711742/Seeds-of-Destruction

You may finds a lot of interesting documentation to extract to further improve wikipedia's articles on this, which is your project.Pottinger's cats (talk) 19:30, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

An ambassador isn't a regulator, far from it. An ambassador who doesn't like it that France has tried to ban GM products does not imply that he has been paid to do it or it's part of any nefarious plot (it's a US product the French where trying to ban, it's not that surprising that the ambassador didn't like it). IRWolfie- (talk) 23:04, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
:) Agreed that diplomats and politicians are not regulators - that is what i wrote on cat's talk page, where i replied to him/her.Jytdog (talk) 23:22, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
The items I cited at the bottom of the page, these two - 1) http://earthopensource.org/index.php/news/60-why-genetically-engineered-food-is-dangerous-new-report-by-genetic-engineers 2) http://www.biointegrity.org/list.html deal with the arguments you have raised in general, and not with the book under examination. I responded to your most recent points re. the NY Times article.Pottinger's cats (talk) 23:18, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
The second link is a clear case of problems with regulators.Pottinger's cats (talk) 23:33, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Tags, edit summary, etc.

Yeah, thanks for your edit summary "edited text to respond to tags. deleted tags. i wish people would fix things instead of just sticking tags on." You are completely right. I don't like tags either. Sometimes, they might be useful however, especially when the contributor who added the tags did not really know how to fix the problems. Please assume good faith. Cheers, --Edcolins (talk) 21:17, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Check 21 Act

Hey I just got done reformatting that article Check 21 Act. I saw ur edits co-ocurring. Can u go back and make sure I didn't wipe any of your edits? Any help appreciated. Am working on other related articles too. Stephen Charles Thompson (talk) 22:49, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Barnstar of Diligence
For building neutral, well-sourced content on articles that are often controversial and difficult to work with. bobrayner (talk) 14:48, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

BRCA mutation

I have added some references for the more controversial issues. As far as I can see most of the other statements should not need references because either the references are in the body of the section or those are trivial summary statements. Please have a look again to see which you feel are really essential. Richiez (talk) 13:12, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

NPOV in Genetically Modified Food

I opened a discussion on creating a NPOV lede in the talk section of Genetically Modified Food. Would like to invite you to the discussion and interested in your thoughts on the matter. BlackHades (talk) 22:36, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Editor's Barnstar
Thanks for catching my mistake! Khimaris (talk) 20:39, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
Thanks for your diligence on working on controversial articles, which can be very difficult to edit. Yobol (talk) 21:23, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

MEDRS

Are you up for a side conversation about MEDRS? I don't think I know what your concern is. Is it more like "People keep saying that MEDRS applies to material that I don't think it should cover" or more like "People are getting into disputes because no two people have the same definition of biomedical information"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:11, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! I am happy to talk. More the latter, but I would not say "no two people"- just there are too often disputes about what the subject matter for the policy is. I reach for secondary sources from the biomed literature first so I have not been dinged for violating MEDRS myself. But I feel that if the policy were more clear the community would benefit, as these kinds of disputes could be more often quickly and cleanly resolved. Of course no policy can cover every situation and there will always need to be interpretation - and I know that making policy is hard and the result is never perfect. I respect what you all have achieved, a great deal! But I believe that sometimes policy can sometimes actually promote conflict when it creates ambiguity, and I feel that naming the subject three different ways, tersely each time, is unnecessarily ambiguous. I know my argument would be more compelling if I had data but I do not - just my impression. Anyway thanks again for offering to talk. I am very interested in your thoughts! Jytdog (talk) 20:18, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I was also curious. My impression is that there are misconceptions about MEDRS. Biosthmors (talk) 18:40, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I share that impression. A more clear statement of the scope would help prevent some misconceptions, yes... but there will always be people who don't read carefully and who misunderstand. Wnt seems to be off base a lot but also seems to be authentically both confused and frustrated. Most importantly Wnt does not seem to understand that even RS calls for secondary studies to be used first and foremost and primary sources only for exceptional cases and then with care, and temporarily, as you did in thrombosis-research section with the 2 recent RCTs. (talk) 20:18, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
WP:SCIRS also exists. In my mind, if it's not medical research, then I rely on WP:SECONDARY and good sense. Would you agree with that? Biosthmors (talk) 20:42, 21 February 2013 (UTC)\
I didn't know that WP:SCIRS existed! However, it is not a guideline or policy so I cannot see how it would be useful for resolving disputes. I do agree with relying on WP:SECONDARY and good sense as much as one can. More clear MEDRS guidelines would help people use good sense. This is what was frustrating on the Talk page for MEDRS - Colin especially seems to believe that the text expressing MEDRS is perfectly fine and all that is needed is common sense. I do not share that perspective -- defining one thing with three different, short terms, is suboptimal for a guideline....Jytdog (talk) 21:15, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


We use (at least) three different names for the stuff that's covered. There are two different responses to this approach: one is for people to assume that all three are covered (anything that is A and/or B and/or C, the maximum set), and the other is to assume that only those things that are simultaneously all three are covered (anything that is A and B and C, but not, e.g., something that is A and B but not C, which is the minimum set). The maximum set is what's intended.
The reason that we use different names (to the extent that it's intentional, rather than the accretion of small changes over a couple of years) is because having the most number of terms increases the odds that whatever the dispute, we can say, "See? It does too cover <insert whatever the POV pusher is claiming it doesn't>."
The terms aren't defined anywhere, and I'm not sure that it would be helpful to do so. Firm definitions aren't really necessary for people who are searching for the best possible source (you personally don't really need MEDRS to exist at all, do you?) but any perceived omission becomes grounds for a wikilawyer to say "See? It doesn't say my exact thing, so it doesn't apply." WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:42, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
I see what you are saying. This is somewhat of a style thing with regard to how policy/guidelines are best constructed and used. It is definitely true that guidelines are not really necessary for people who are well intentioned and understand the 5 pillars, and that lawyerly types will find holes in anything. My sense is that it will probably be impossible to get consensus to change this so I am dropping my effort. Thanks for replying! Jytdog (talk) 02:30, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
As you said above, policy writing is hard. But perhaps now that we've got a clearer idea of your concern, then eventually someone will discover a way to improve the page. Thanks for explaining it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:52, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

BPA article

You have started deleting the primary studies from the article saying it is per policy. Please point that policy out to me. Thanks. Gandydancer (talk) 01:27, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Copyright review.

I'm asking the two single largest contributors to Bacillus thuringiensis to look into resolving the copyright issue. Is this something you can do to help?

Hello, Jytdog. You have new messages at Talk:Bacillus_thuringiensis#Copyright_review..
Message added SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:15, 11 March 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Why WP:UNDUE?

Hi, thanks for working towards a compromise on Agribusiness. In your edits, you kept pointing towards WP:UNDUE. How was crediting Ng undue weight? He is an authority within one of the primary communities writing the literature on agribusiness, providing a pretty standard definition. Also, I hope everything else in the community and real life is going well for you! Sadads (talk) 19:29, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for reaching out. You write "He is an authority within one of the primary communities writing the literature on agribusiness".... all I am saying is that you need a source for that -- this seems to be knowledge based on your experience, and the whole WP:OR policy is about writing encyclopedia articles based on reliable secondary sources, not OR. He is literally the only human being named in that article -- is he really the most important man who ever existed in agribusiness? That is the "weight" thing. I hope that makes sense.Jytdog (talk) 20:39, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Hello

Just a friendly greeting, and an additional assurance that I have no problem whatsover with your work on Monsanto, at least as deeply as I looked. I came to the article because someone came to the Teahouse complaining that they were having trouble getting their YouTube video of their protest song into the article. That brought me to take a look. I have no topic expertise in GMOs, agribusiness or the like, and no axe to grind. I do have a strong desire to see POV pushing removed from any given article in favor of well-referenced NPOV content. Like you, I admire the five pillars, which don't get mentioned often enough these days.

So, I've got to say that I am impressed by your user page, and grateful that editors like you are working in this topic area. Thank you. Feel free to say "hello" from time to time. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 18:47, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanatory note, and for your kind words. I'm sorry I made the folk artist unhappy -- the video was pretty funny but it had nothing to do with Monsanto except mentioning its name. Thanks again!Jytdog (talk) 02:07, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Hydroxycut edit

I'm bewildered by this edit[1], in which you remove text with an edit summary saying that "I've" removed text. Actually you have. Can you please explain? Coretheapple (talk) 23:03, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

A cup of coffee for you!

Thanks for the attention you gave to Dietary Supplement Health And Education Act of 1994. It is encouraging to know that someone would find it so quickly.

I looked over your user page. I also am interested in biotech information ownership and I also participate a lot at WP:WikiProject Medicine. Stop by my page anytime if you want to collaborate on something. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:47, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

BP & Wikipedia

Funny to find us disagreeing on that. My feeling was that it's too much Wikipedia "inside baseball" and just not important to readers. However, I suppose that in the absence of a tag informing readers of such situations (which i have drafted in my sandbox), such sections may serve the purpose. They make me uneasy, though. Coretheapple (talk) 16:21, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with your comment on the editing culture at the BP article being broken, but I disagree with your view exonerating BP itself from that taking place. Whether the employee involved has been in "the right" by Wiki standards is immaterial. The problem is that having a company employee participating on the talk page is, in itself, a highly disruptive factor and I believe is directly responsible for the mess in that article now. I'm not exonerating the other editors but condemning the dynamic. Coretheapple (talk) 19:21, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I have seen Arturo make only a few remarks, and all of them were extremely polite. And I mean extremely. You can tell he is a PR pro. It is the other editors who are making the culture ugly and doing all the wierd stuff. I don't see how you are connecting the presence of arturo with the behavior of those editors. They don't refer to him at all. What behaviors - what actual writing - can you point to, that demonstrate that connection? I fear you are dealing with "spiritual" realities, rather than concrete behaviors on the Talk page and in the editing. My conclusions are based on "who wrote what", not who anybody is. So do tell! Can you show me what you mean? Jytdog (talk) 19:40, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
I think that we're talking about the same thing. First, I hate the references to "Arturo this" and "Arturo that" because he's a BP employee working on the article on BP time, executing BP's media strategy, and he does not function independently of BP. Over time, he has utilized the talk page for the purpose of proposing vast amounts of text that have had the effect of toning down and whitewashing the article, consuming the time of editors, turning editing of BP into a kind of PR activity. That's very much his job, and he is polite, and he hasn't broken any rules. But I think that his presence as a catalyst for whitewashing has helped result in the broken editorial culture on that page that you correctly point out. What makes it invidious is that it is indeed in concordance with the rules. This isn't some vandal but a respected Wikipedia editor who is popular and polite, who makes requests that seem reasonable. It's only when you back up and look at what's happened do you realize that the BP article has become a mess. Yes, the reason it has become a mess is because of a coterie of editors who execute the proposals that BP has initiated. But it is BP that is the catalyst for that process. If BP did not have an official presence on that page I don't think it would have happened. Coretheapple (talk) 20:10, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
I see what you are saying, kind of... but I hold people responsible for what they themselves say and do. I don't buy the "catalyst" argument.Jytdog (talk) 20:20, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
I've reviewed other pages where PR reps, employees and consultants have concentrated, and that's been the invariable case. That's a discussion for another time and place. Right now, as they say on Capitol Hill, the time of the gentleman (me) has expired. Coretheapple (talk) 20:48, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Reply

Thanks for your quick reply. Sorry. I just felt a sharp edge and wanted to quickly dull it. As you say, I misunderstood but that is a common problem in these discussions. We often miss each other. We know what we mean but it comes across different. I monitor Peace in RL so I see the signs of discord, which none of us want. ```Buster Seven Talk 13:24, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry that I distressed you. I realize I have been condescending to Core and have apologized on Core's page. Believe it or not, I am trying to help Core. I am not doing that anymore.Jytdog (talk) 13:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
I see that...the help User:Coretheapple#strategy... confusion...loud and clear. You are a welcome addition to the article. I also only just recently joined the fray myself. As you know with these "difficult" articles, manners go along way in keeping things cool. ```Buster Seven Talk 13:33, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for understanding. We all need slack sometimes! :) Jytdog (talk) 13:44, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Hey there. Just back for a moment to clear this up.Re [2], no need for that kind of thing. Let's not make a mountain out of a molehill. Feel free to interact. Advice always welcome. Cheers and I'll be back in a few days. You've done a fine job with the new section but that POV tag must go if it hasn't already. Coretheapple (talk) 15:38, 3 April 2013 (UTC) (Oh, I just reread it and noticed you said "that way." OK... just didn't want to inhibit you. people walk on eggshells too much. And tell Gandydancer to keep with it.) Coretheapple (talk) 15:40, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Thank you.Jytdog (talk) 15:44, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Gandy stepped away for some time off.
  • Core is buzy keeping the tax man happy.
  • Petrachan47 is not to be found. (I hope she returns)
  • I am reluctant to put my "whole" head into the noose.
  • In spite of all that, things actually look good. Thanks. ````Buster Seven Talk
Thanks! I am glad like what is going. Hard to say how well things are going since they are all away, though. I am kind of worried that they will be mad that I shortened the section on DWH... Jytdog (talk) 12:58, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
I was going to look in on the article today but instead I got sidetracked by another discussion. I should be back later in the week, and hopefully the other editors you mention will as well. In principle I'm not hot about shortening the article and feel it should go in the other direction, but i haven't seen what's happened there. Coretheapple (talk) 15:58, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

EotW

The Friendship Barnstar
Nice to meet you. The future of Editor of the Week depends on nominations. The focus is on "invisible" hard-working editors. You seem to be a Wiki wanderer. I would imagine that you run across potential candidates here and there. Please keep EotW in mind. ```Buster Seven Talk 20:10, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, I certainly will! Jytdog (talk) 18:10, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Relax. I'm not worried about YOU sanitizing it. It's the guys and gals in the white biohazard suits w/ the BP sunburst that I'm worried about ```Buster Seven Talk 03:18, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Amazon reviews

I mean that can be sourced with proper attribution and proper wording. Example: very high number of people who has posted feedbacks on amazon has indicated that d-mannose resulted in miracleous cures for bladder infection. In such a case we don't say that it actually provides cure, but we rather state the facts on the ground. Ryanspir (talk) 17:01, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for asking! Amazon reviews violate about every part of WP:RS that I can think of. The biggest problem is that they are 'self-published' please please read WP:USERGENERATED and the longer WP:SPS. You have no way of knowing if a user who posts on Amazon ever used the product, much less whether what the user said is true. You also have no way of knowing whether the "very high number" of d-mannose reviews were posted by one person or by "very many" people. Amazon reviews are not reliable. Jytdog (talk) 17:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

right

You are right in virtually everything what you have said. However, thats why i also call them unreliable sources. Yet, i believe they can be used nonetheless with right attribution as shown in the example. Also small note, amazon reviews have status lines. Such as verified purchase and premium reviewer. Usually those reviews are even more trustworthy. Another thing to consider, is that while sourcing to one review has its considerations, referring to summarization is better. Lets assume that in two hundred reviews we have 5 reviews that are not real. However if majority of reviews are correlated on some points, these 5 reviews won't have any effect. Just try to read the reviews on d-mannose by now foods and you will see what i mean. Ryanspir (talk) 19:20, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

As I asked you on the MEDRS talk page.... Can you please answer? You say: 1) Amazon reviews are not reliable sources. and 2) We should be able to use them as sources. Since you know that wikipedia policy states that content can only be sourced from reliable sources, how can you say both things? One of them must go -- either you argue that Amazon reviews are reliable sources, or you say that we cannot use them. With regard to what you say above....if any Amazon review is not reliable, that means that 100 Amazon reviews are still unreliable, and a summary of 100 Amazon reviews is still unreliable. You cannot get out of the unreliable bucket. And in any case a summary of 100 Amazon Reviews by an editor violates WP:SYN. These policies -- WP:RS and WP:SYN, are two of the most important, foundational policies that wikipedia has. You cannot mess with them! Jytdog (talk) 19:38, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

BP article

Hello there, Jytdog. I'm sorry to see that you have decided to stop working on the BP article. Even though you and I haven't always agreed on some topics, you have been a good moderating influence on the page. I hope your disagreements with some of the other current participants won't discourage you completely. I realize the current state of the discussion there is quite frustrating, but I hope you'll reconsider and come back at some point soon. Thanks, Arturo at BP (talk) 19:27, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind note. Jytdog (talk) 19:54, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

glyphosate WP:MEDRS

Hello Jytdog. Can you describe the process you used to determine that the addition I made failed WP:MEDRS? I'd like to add that to my toolbox. Chango369w (talk) 09:54, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Chango. I'll answer your question straight but I don't understand it.... this is like applying any policy. But OK, for health content, the key idea is that health-related content needs to be based on very secure foundations, the best we have, that expresses the consensus of the medical community. In this case, the journal is not a biomedical journal or textbook. The authors are not part of the medical community. What they present in this article, is not the medical consensus, nor even primary biomedical experimental research, but instead they present novel hypotheses they have generated based on their review of primary and secondary biomedical literature. This is not a secondary source --a review -- in the standard way we think about them -- it is really a primary source, presenting what I would call "theoretical biomedical research" (there are actually a few journals now for theoretical biology). But you can see here that on all three levels -- journal, authors, and content, the source fails MEDRS. This is not a reliable source, presenting the consensus of the medical community - this is the biggest reason why it fails. I hope that was helpful. btw if you don't agree we can take this to a discussion board Wikipedia_talk:MED Jytdog (talk) 14:34, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Hello again. My question wasn't phrased properly. What I was looking for was the rationale you used to classify the source as unreliable. Your explanation is helpful and I don't think it's necessary to bring this to a discussion board. Since I'm new at adding cited content, I didn't use enough consideration when I selected the source. Chango369w (talk) 16:06, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Glad I was able to helpful. Thanks for asking about this in such a reasonable way! Sometimes folks just angry and it becomes hard to talk, so thanks! Jytdog (talk) 20:49, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Boldness

I want to thank you for your boldness at Aspartame controversy/Aspartame. You did a nice job of making a proposal, getting input, then acting based upon the discussion. If there had been a few more participants, it would have made a nice textbook case.Novangelis (talk) 20:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words! And for your input on the proposal! Jytdog (talk) 20:31, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Jytdog, you may appreciate the following: http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/abuse/Pottinger's cats (talk) 16:56, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Hello

Jytdog, in spite of supposed differences, I would like to express my gratitude to you. I love you.

Thank you for having been a part of my evolution.Pottinger's cats (talk) 16:54, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind note! I wish you the best. Jytdog (talk) 19:55, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

history of organic

I made a post on the organic article. If you are interested in a collaboration, by all means, please comment. Right now the history section is completely wrong. Redddbaron (talk) 13:56, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Glucosamine

Don't you think that this quote is a bit too lengthy to fall under wp:NFCC? LeadSongDog come howl! 02:57, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

No I don't. But I agree that it is too long, for readability. We ended up with that because of a dispute with another editor who kept trying to pump up positive effects of the study by emphasizing cherry picked parts of the conclusion. However, if you want to whack it down, please feel free! Jytdog (talk) 04:03, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

The Anti-Bullshit Barnstar for you!

The Anti-Bullshit Barnstar
For your heartfelt dedication to eradicating bullshit from Wikipedia. Zad68 13:21, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

A little while ago I poked around your user page, and that led me to read Harry Frankfurt's excellent essay. Thanks for your efforts to get Wikipedia articles to present the facts as they actually are, and as difficult as the reliable sources describe them to be. Zad68 13:21, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

You just made me laugh really hard. thanks! Jytdog (talk) 14:13, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Entropy

Side note: what I mean is that if you've got sources, it would be nice if Entropy (journal) looked more like this and less like any random journal stub. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:12, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I will work on that! Jytdog (talk) 20:19, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Jytdog: thanks for keeping an eye on that Entropy article that keeps trying to get in the glyphosate page. I'm not a frequent contributor so I don't know all the protocols. But I wanted to offer some things I'm aware of about that article. It was called "a load of crap" by this chemist: http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2013/04/30/is_glyphosate_poisoning_everyone.php and it was questioned by a science journalist here: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2013/04/26/when-media-uncritically-cover-pseudoscience/#more-11062 . Scientists at this blog: http://www.biofortified.org/community/forum/agriculture-group5/growing-methods-forum26/glyphosate-disease-and-semiotic-entropy-thread302/ . It was also examined by the science journalism professionals at Knight Science Journalism tracker at MIT, and this gets at the terrible Reuters story: http://ksj.mit.edu/tracker/2013/04/discover-blogger-keith-kloor-stumbles-ne . It may have been propagated through other media sources but that doesn't make it any more legitimate. Mmangan333 (talk) 13:07, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I am aware of all that. The key thing for us at wikipedia is that the article all on its own fails wikipedia's MEDRS guideline -- see the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)#Review_of_Monsanto.27s_Roundup_herbicide Jytdog (talk) 13:17, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Yeah, it does fail the most basic aspect, right. Thanks for helping me learn more about how these things are monitored and assessed! Mmangan333 (talk) 13:39, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
You are welcome! Thanks for talking. Jytdog (talk) 14:14, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Soy protein

The flour section in soy protein was redundant with the flour section in soybean. If you feel it's necessary to repeat the information, feel free to copy the section from soybean, which I just finished editing. –Temporal User (Talk) 12:50, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually among food scientists soy flour is considered one of the main ways that soy protein is produced and distributed. I added 2 refs that explain that. Jytdog (talk) 14:33, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Axona

Hey Jyt just wanted to make sure you saw the sourcing notes I left at Talk:Axona. Nice work so far making use of what was given. Zad68 03:13, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

On closer inspection that new content stinks too much. The main source of info was a completely COI study. How about reverting back to before its addition and just put in whatever tiny pieces are useful. Mea culpa, I won't make this mistake again. Zad68 03:31, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Ditto on the mea culpa! Thanks for catching me- see what you think now... Jytdog (talk) 04:26, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

GA plans for Monsanto?

Hi Jyt, what are your plans for Monsanto? Are you considering bringing it to GA? You by far have the most edits at that article, into the range of the number of edits you'd expect to find for an article that size going for GA. Per my comments at Talk:Monsanto#Edits_May_3 I still think the article has WP:UNDUE problems. I've done some GA reviews and it would certainly be something I would question if I were reviewing it for GA.

My comments at the Talk page were very general and hypothetical, but Semi suggested instead developing sandbox content. I do not plan on digging into the sourcing or doing major editing work there myself - I already have enough other things I want to get done, and the article is really outside my main area of editing interest. But if you had plans to bring it to GA, I could help support, although no guarantee consensus could be developed there to bring the article in line with WP:UNDUE to pass GA.

Another thought would be to develop the rest of the article to GA standards, do whatever can be agreed on for the criticisms sections, and then put it up for GA and see what happens. If the GA reviewer fails the article because of WP:UNDUE that would be a strong argument supporting changes. It's also possible the GA reviewer would think the criticisms sections are OK, and then you'd have a GA to brag about . Again, we're not talking about eliminating all criticisms, just making sure the article covers the most notable criticisms at an appropriate level of detail.

Let me know your thoughts. Zad68 14:34, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Interesting! Thank you so much for taking the time to think about this. I am debating doing it. Part of me thinks it would be a nice feather, and it would be helpful to get that kind of feedback and would be a learning experience about the process... on the other hand, I worry that GA reviewer scrutiny could blow up the page. As I wrote in the Talk discussion you reference, while I think good arguments can made that the article suffers from UNDUE I do not think an effort to reduce the weight given to criticism is possible. Although semiT can get too mean for my taste, discussions with him/her have remained pretty reasonable - (he/she is the most frequent editor who wants to ensure that the negative POV on Monsanto that is so common, is well represented). Discussions have not gotten horrific on this page as they have on (for example) the BP Talk page, where the politics are something like the French revolution (and is currently going through a kind of reign of terror that I, to my regret, helped unleash, and which drove me off the article). There are people watching this article and barely tolerating the work I have done (see gandydancer's remarks User_talk:Petrarchan47#Monsanto here for example). Having a civil editing environment is more important to me than getting GA -- way more important. So I am debating. Thanks again for your thoughts! Jytdog (talk) 15:06, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
To be clear, I thought Semi's responses were civil and Semi made some good points. I think the editors there are editing in good faith and it won't be productive to make statements that there's a motivation regarding a POV. Anyway, good luck with the article, I'm curious to see how it develops. Zad68 15:47, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! I hear you, and you clearly stated that on the Talk page too. I hear your implicit message too, that if people feel you are "name calling" then things can get really poisonous, really fast (which I think is what sunk me on the BP page). I wrote what I wrote above carefully. I too am not saying that semi is a POV-pusher (just like I will not say that the article is definitely suffering from UNDUE). Stepping way back, I think about the idea of "Weltbild" a lot - people talk about weltanshauung but what is even more fundamental, is the world you see (your weltbild) - the picture of the world on which you have a perspective. People who don't care about business, who don't think about business-related things, don't even see Monsanto as a company - all its business strategies, innovations, successes, failures... how it raises money and makes money, etc... all that stuff is not even in their Weltbild - it is outside their "bubble"; they literally don't see sources that describe that stuff and they sometimes don't even know where to look to find them (I've actually been asked that). This is why conversations about WEIGHT, to me, are ultimately futile. WEIGHT is ultimately determined by what editors see - by what they care about. And I think most people make a good faith effort to have Wikipedia accurately represent the world they see, based on the sources that they turn to for information about the world. Moving back in... as I wrote on the Monsanto talk page, people care about what they care about. A lot of people care about the Monsanto article and especially care that it represents what they see as being important about Monsanto, namely - the bad stuff they see the company doing. I don't ~think~ semi has added any non-negative content about Monsanto - I believe that those aspects of Monsanto are simply not of interest to him/her - they are not important and deserve little to no weight. I don't see that as name-calling but people sometimes take it that way - it is a somewhat subtle point and gets too easily lost especially when people get a warlike mentality on. Summing up, I don't see the WEIGHT changing significantly - I am not going to try to do it, for sure. I want the page to be stable, for there to be enough consensus among the editors on content and enough tolerance for differing Weltbilds, for the page to be stable and the discussion to remain civil. Jytdog (talk) 18:05, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Relevance of mentioning cert?

What's the informational value in stating in Monsanto that the Court granted cert. right before saying what its decision was? This is not an article about the court case, in which you'd want to lay out every significant procedural detail, but rather an article about one of the parties to the case, and in any event the fact that it granted cert. is obvious from the fact that it heard the case and rendered a decision in it. postdlf (talk) 16:28, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

It is one sentence - why is this worth fussing over? Also the source is great for showing the anxiety that SCOTUS granting cert caused. While yes it is obvious that they granted cert since they made a decision, it is still kind of jarring to jump from appeal to decision. Again, it is one sentence. Jytdog (talk) 16:43, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Séralini affair

Hi,
Have you seen the Séralini affair? It's a new article, but I've much admired your work on other closely-related articles; perhaps you'd be interested in it... bobrayner (talk) 10:19, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like a james bond movie. :) i have not seen it til now -- will definitely check it out. And thanks for your kind words. Jytdog (talk) 14:21, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Hydroxycut Edit

Thanks for clarifying the point on the Hydroxycut article FitnessismyGoal (talk) 17:41, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

You are welcome! Jytdog (talk) 14:25, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

My talk page

Hi Jytdog, just a note to say again that I'm sorry you were discussed on my talk page without being notified. It's easy to forget that we need to notify people who are being criticized even when it's on a user talk page. I've removed the thread and it won't happen there again. All the best, SlimVirgin (talk) 16:22, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I didn't mean to cause you any trouble. I am sorry about that. Jytdog (talk) 17:59, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
It's no trouble. I'm glad you pointed it out. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:40, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Horizontal gene transfer of RoundUp resistance to weeds

Hi, I know this is a touchy issue on both sides, and I didn't understand some of your edit summaries, so I'm hoping we can have a discussion of the sources and their merits at Talk:Glyphosate#Horizontal gene transfer to resistant weeds. I'm not a biologist or an activist, but I am a professional science writer, and I've been discussing this with two other journalists with postdoc biology training, so I'm pretty sure I've got the basics right. In any case, I'd love to read your thoughts. Neo Poz (talk) 02:08, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Addressed on Talk page of article. Nice discussion, thank you. Jytdog (talk) 02:29, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

RE: link to main monsanto march

WP:IAR, as simple as it. If the article is at AFD doesn't mean it will be deleted, and in fact, the more visible a page is, the more likely to be edited and improved by other editors. Being at AFD is not a justification to remove, if that were the case there would be a bot removing links from articles listed at AFD. Tbhotch.™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 02:45, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Also, BRD is an essay, not a rule, don't use them as a shield. Tbhotch.™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 02:45, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
BRD is good etiquette to prevent edit wars. I appreciate civil discussion. Jytdog (talk) 03:36, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Seralini affair

While this passage involves edits that were not mine, I must point out that you are entirely wrong in this series of claims: "The requested edit above obliterates the key point of the paragraph, which is about statistical power. The criticism is not about the choice of SD rats alone, but rather about the choice of the number of SD rats used for a lifetime study -- three elements of the experimental design considered together - the kind of rat, the length of the study, and the number of rats per arm. This is an issue of experimental design. If you want to get meaningful results in any experiment - results that can show experimental effects above random noise - you have to design your experiment carefully. If you are doing a lifetime study in SD rats (2 elements), you need over 50 SD rats per arm to get meaningful results (3rd element), because SD rats have a high rate of cancer over their lifetimes, It is absolutely true that SD rats are commonly used in tox and carcinogenicity studies, but they are used at low numbers like Seralini used in shorter term (3 month) studies, not for lifetime studies, and if lifetime studies are done, over 50 rats are used. Jytdog (talk) 13:06, 24 May 2013 (UTC)"

You are confusing chronic toxicity studies (which Seralini's study was) with carcinogenicity studies (which his study was not). They have different rules and different numbers of rats. There's quite a good explanation of some of these points here, with refs to various OECD protocols: http://gmoseralini.org/criticism-seralini-used-too-few-animals/ Short message is: Seralini's experiment had enough rats for a chronic toxicity test, and in those tests you are supposed to note tumours, as he did. This is really quite simple, is it not clear to you?

However, you should also bear in mind that OECD protocols are designed as studies in which industry has to test its products prior to regulatory approval. The large number of rats in the carcinog protocols is to protect the public against false negative findings. Where you find toxicity, as Seralini did, the relatively small no. of rats is not a problem, in that toxicity was clearly found. If Monsanto wants to argue that larger numbers of rats would prove the GM food and Roundup are NOT carcinogenic, then they are free to do a full scale carcinogenicity test.Dusha100 (talk) 10:55, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for talking with me! I see that you buy Seralini's argument, which I view as blowing smoke. He certainly emphasized the carcinogenicity findings! But in any case, the read of the scientific community, is that you cannot say that "toxicity was clearly found" because the data are uninterpretable - there is not enough statistical power there, and he makes way too much hay out of small (or more importantly, uninterpretable) differences. This is what he has done since his first GM paper in 2007. I don't think Seralini had any concern for protecting the public from false claims of positive findings - I think he wanted to scare the public. And this is why he was criticized by most people in the scientific community (including the editors of Nature and the French ethical society) - namely, for making such strong claims on such weak data, and for publicizing his strong claims in such a flashy way. I don't understand his strategy. Nobody in the mainstream believes him, going back to his 2007 paper - if he really wanted to show everybody he is right and get regulatory agencies to change their minds and actually save the public from GMOs already (which I had always thought was his goal) - why would he not have done 6065 rats (to really nail, it, say 100 rats) per arm, so that nobody could dispute him? Why come with such easily shreddable data? Why not publicize his experimental design before he starts and let his critics tell him what they will find flaws with, and what they would be convinced by, and then do that? Instead he brings extraordinary claims based on thin data, and leaves people like you and me pushing and pulling to make sense of this mess, and leaves a lot of the public scared and angry. Do you see what I mean? Jytdog (talk) 11:42, 27 May 2013 (UTC) (edit note, changed 60 to 65: "Moreover, the study used Sprague-Dawley rats, which both reviews note are prone to developing spontaneous tumours. Data provided to Nature by Harlan Laboratories, which supplied the rats in the study, show that only one-third of males, and less than one-half of females, live to 104 weeks. By comparison, its Han Wistar rats have greater than 70% survival at 104 weeks, and fewer tumours. OECD guidelines state that for two-year experiments, rats should have a survival rate of at least 50% at 104 weeks. If they do not, each treatment group should include even more animals — 65 or more of each sex." from here: http://www.nature.com/news/hyped-gm-maize-study-faces-growing-scrutiny-1.11566 Jytdog (talk) 12:20, 27 May 2013 (UTC))
And by the way, this is exactly the kind of conversation we should be having on Talk. Do you mind if I cut and paste this discuss there? Jytdog (talk) 12:34, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Monsanto

That is perhaps the lamest reason to boldly re-insert a recent change to an article. Discuss it on the talk page, IRWolfie- (talk) 18:10, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

! Ok, we can discuss on Talk. I respect you a lot as an editor, let's do talk. You are a little late to this party, btw. Jytdog (talk) 18:12, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Cheers, the material is less than 2 days old. It takes much longer for content to be established as the long term version, IRWolfie- (talk) 18:14, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Re: Your comment on Seralini Affair deletion nomination

See WP:SPA. At the time of my comment, I believe the nom had 11 edits, about half of which were to the article in question and the rest to the AfD and his own user page. Ansh666 17:05, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

You're very welcome! Ansh666 17:22, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Editing of Genetically Modified Organisms page

Jytdog if you have respect for having an ACTUALLY neutral Wikipedia, you'll stop editing criticism out of the Genetically Modified Organisms page which is highly relevant in that it shows the US as the exception to the rule. GMOs are labelled or banned all around the world. The fact that the article assumes an Amero-centric perspective is highly biased, especially when the sentiment of the article contradicts the vast majority of the American public.

Additionally, the practice of relegating all "criticism" to a separate article and leaving only a brief, generic message on the main page about criticism is an underhanded means of burying legitimate information where it unlikely to be found, leaving a uncritical main page. In the case of Genetically Modified Organisms, the wikipedia page looks like it could serve as a direct advertisement for Monsanto & company trying to convince the American public of the safety of GMOs and the lack of need for them to be labeled, which is undeniably NOT a settled issue. Your edits absolutely work against the neutrality of wikipedia, and I hope you can realize your own bias in this and make less attempt to scrub important information from articles if they contradict your personal views. Boleroinferno (talk) 08:26, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Bolerinferno. Thanks for much talking with me! I do respect Wikipedia, very much. If I may, let me explain the context, which I think you are not aware of. About a year ago, there were several articles describing genetically modified stuff - there was GM food, GMOs, and genetic engineering. There was no article on GM crops. All three of these articles were pretty much full of the same content - namely, the whole range of reasons why people don't like GMOs. There was no information anywhere in Wikipedia on what food was actually genetically modified! I decided at that time to take all the content on the controversy, and put it in a single article, create a GM crops article, and then have each of the remaining articles actually describe their topic. This was done in dialogue on the relevant Talk pages. What are GM crops, what food is GM, what is a GMO, how are these things made (genetic engineering); Wikipedia now explains all that. And all the controversy stuff is now concentrated in one article, where it can be discussed with nuance and at length. Each of the non-controversy articles has a stub giving the high-level overview of the controversy and pointing them to the main article. The controversies article is very very long -- there is almost no end to how those stubs could be expanded if we start expanding them! Please believe me, we have a lot of people come through (mostly IP addresses) and are just bombers, much more rarely people who care enough to stick around and actually ask what is going on. So that is what is going on. There is no "scrubbing" - there is just an effort to keep the articles focused and prevent the sprawl that characterized these articles a year ago. And please, it would have been in accord with WP:CIVIL if you had asked an open question instead of coming with accusations. Happy to keep talking! Have a great day. Jytdog (talk) 14:16, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Last time

No more comments at my talk page, period. I can't be more clear. petrarchan47tc 20:12, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I hope that you keep in mind that I have concerns about you personally attacking me, and I hope that you will steer clear of that going forward. I followed policy in bringing that to your attention on your talk page.Jytdog (talk) 14:30, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Seralini affair 2

Hi Jytdog: [3] I think you're probably the most likely to know if there's a source for this, so I'm just leaving this note on your talk page in case you have time to look into it. Thanks! Arc de Ciel (talk) 01:16, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Done. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 02:29, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, I might be misreading the article, but I'm actually not sure that would support more than an "according to Monsanto" statement - i.e. that Monsanto said there were trade secrets, not that the trade secrets actually exist. Do you see the distinction I'm trying to make? From my edit summary: "Do we have an RS that says trade secrets were revealed? Otherwise the statement should use a different phrasing, e.g. "Monsanto argued" or "Monsanto said."" I'm mostly ignorant of business matters - is the term "trade secret" broadly defined enough that one can probably assume them to exist in any documents such as the ones under discussion? As you say, thanks for the dialog. :-) Arc de Ciel (talk) 05:07, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
I see, I'm sorry I didn't address the question. A trade secret is indeed a broad term -- it is any information that a company keeps confidential through established processes and that gives it some advantage in the marketplace. Those are the three key aspects of the definition, which have been defined through case law over time. For example, the most famous trade secret is the formula for Coke. The general assumption is that any information related to plans or products that the company doesn't make public is a trade secret. Where the rubber hits the road is when litigation happens -- if, for instance, an employee takes information from his or her employer and sells it to another, the employer has to show those things are true in order to win. Or litigation like that over Monsanto's tox data. There is no doubt that Monsanto's tox testing information fits the first two (was confidential and there were internal procedures to keep it that way)... whether it fits the third is where the big debate happens. I suppose that there is an advantage in not having your tox data pored over by anti-GMO activists looking to make trouble for you, but that is a pretty thin argument. The German court ruled that the public's right to know was more important than whatever advantage keeping the data secret conferred on Monsanto. There is a very hot debate going on right now in Europe, where the EU is trying to get drug companies to make public the raw data from clinical trials. They were starting to get some companies to do it but then two companies sued over trade secrets and won and now the process has stopped. Jytdog (talk) 12:53, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! I think that answers the question. Arc de Ciel (talk) 02:17, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Non-GMO project

So The Non-GMO Project is a lobbying group of organic producers. How is that appropriate to put on the GMO sites? Shall we also put Biotechnology Industry Organization on the organic sites? This is why you were reverted - you are soapboxing. Jytdog (talk) 03:06, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

... Yes, sure that sounds good to me, add it in there. i'm not intending to be soapboxing by any means, you're just jumping to conclusions. and by doing so aggressively i'd even suspect your in actually the one who simply trying to promote and push your own personal views yourself by removing conflicting ones; if either of us is attempting such a thing. i'm genuinely just trying to make the articles more informative, and thorough, going off what information i'm learning as i do, as anybody does. by all means they should be balanced as possible as well. so have at it. If the Non-GMO project is merely a lobbying group; and not a simple but genuine endevour to state on packages whether food had been altered from it's natural state or not, as the general public should have a right to know, which as far as i have seen of it; the later is all it's attempting to do. Then in the case of the former, the Non-GMO Project article should be heavily updated with criticism section and counter points proving their efforts fraudulent, which no one has put on there. I don't work for some company to be promoting anything, i'm just trying to stay informed and healthy as i think any educated person should also be, and would so long as the information is presented to them, in which otherwise they would not be aware. whats so hard to grasp about that, than being something more nefarious? Radical Ghost (talk) 03:32, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi thanks for talking! I don't know to respond, however. It seems that you believe in the goals of the Non-GMO Project, and by inserting it into sites describing what it is opposed to, you are indeed soapboxing. It would probably be appropriate on the genetically modified food controversies page, which is all about the conflict. I'll add it there! By the way, from a scientific view point, the consensus is that currently marketed food from GMOs is as safe as food from their conventional counterparts. I know there is a lot of misinformation out there, but that is the consensus. This is much like the global warming thing, except on the GM food issue you find environmentalists flipping to the anti-science side. It is kind of crazy. To be really clear here, saying what science says on food from GMOs is a different thing from saying that Monsanto is great or industrial ag is great - there are a lot of important issues that the organic movement is addressing. btw I wasn't aware of the Non-GMO Project article until you brought it to my attention -- I will have a look and see if there is any WP:FRINGE science there that needs to be addressed. Thanks again for talking! Jytdog (talk) 03:44, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Just because a company has a patent does not mean they are using

Technically speaking, yes it does, in order to be granted a patent and for it to remain valid they must be using it. Anyway, I will do a better job of documenting that the Bt sprays used for non-GMO organic production are themselves GMO products, and I'll re-add the information citing secondary references as well as Valent's primary source of the patent that covers the "two-plasmid" GE/GM manufacturing process of DiPel and Foray for strain improvements. The current strain used in these products is a GE/GM improvement from ~2005 (it was submitted for approval in Europe in 2008). Thanks! - Jizzbug (talk) 18:19, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi User:Jizzbug, that is actually not true - to get a patent, there is no obligation that you are using the invention. It is true that in some countries (and the US is not one of them) an issued patent can be revoked if it is not being used, but that is a different matter. As I wrote on the Talk page, I looked for reliable sources that any of Valent's current products are made with genetic engineering and I didn't find any -- but they might be out there! Jytdog (talk) 18:26, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
Because it is a manufacturing patent and not a product patent, the products do not need to disclose the patent. In the US you do need to develop and use a technology to be granted a patent, but I suppose you are right that you can stop using it after it is granted or at least after it is applied for (preferred embodiments vs. specific embodiments). (I myself have a patent on fractal analysis and pricing methods, and I've served as a technical adviser to a high-tech patent attorney; I don't know it all, but I know a little.) GE/GM strain improvement methods are known to industry and academic insiders, and there are references to the strain improvement processes in the published literature (which I meant to incorporate by single reference to the patent, which references many of those sources, and which described the prevailing methods of strain improvement before disclosing their methods). However, since it is intellectual property and a business method or manufacturing process patent at that, its relation to Valent's "organic production" products need not be disclosed and is likely to be considered a trade secret by Valent due to the controversies involved. Thanks again! (PS: the "two-plasmid" process is itself hinted at in the very name "DiPel", but if the patent itself doesn't count then a euphemism certainly won't. ;) Jizzbug (talk) 18:55, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
Jizzbug, I work with patents every day and I assure you that there is no "need to develop and use a technology to be granted a patent" - please show me where in US patent law it says that (I cannot show you that it doesn't say that because I cannot show an absence!). But it is just not true in the US - please ask the attorney whom you work with. You are right - if Valent keeps the fact that they manufacture that way as a trade secret, yes it is indeed unlikely we will be able to find evidence, so will not be able to include content on this in Wikipedia. If it is true that they make it with GM techniques then they should lose their organic certification! Also I wonder if in their EPA clearance documents they disclose how they make it... Jytdog (talk) 19:10, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
Jytdog is correct. The only thing you have to do to maintain a US patent is to pay the maintenance fees on time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:21, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Sock puppet accusation

On what evidence is this allegation based? You might do well to read WP:DBQ. But by all means, pursue the matter if you so wish. Semitransgenic talk. 14:39, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

User:Semitransgenic - that is based on me being an idiot and failing to see that it was groupuscule and not you that responded right away! Groupuscule also pointed out my mistake on that page (graciously and with some wit) and I struck the comment already. Sorry about that! There was no sock puppet allegation, it was really that I failed to see that it was groupuscule and not you who replied. That's all. I do not believe for a heartbeat that you and groupuscule are the same person or that you are doing sockpuppetty things. You have a very clear voice that is all your own. My apologies again! Jytdog (talk) 14:46, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Your revert

I'm bringing this to the talk page. Your hypocrisy is outstanding. Viriditas (talk) 02:23, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Talk:March_Against_Monsanto#Recent_reverts. Viriditas (talk) 02:35, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Ouch, strong words! I will respond there. Jytdog (talk) 03:07, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

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Talkback

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WilliamH (talk) 10:47, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Jytdog. You have new messages at WilliamH's talk page.
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WilliamH (talk) 13:50, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Rollback

I have enabled rollback on your account. Keep in mind these things when going to use rollback:

  • Getting rollback is no more momentous than installing Twinkle.
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If you no longer want rollback, contact me and I'll remove it. Also, for some more information on how to use rollback, see Wikipedia:New admin school/Rollback (even though you're not an admin). I'm sure you'll do great with rollback, but feel free to leave me a message on my talk page if you run into troubles or have any questions about appropriate/inappropriate use of rollback. WilliamH (talk) 14:13, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

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