e-cigarette Wikipedia article needs help

[Wallace_Frampton]

IMO, if this whole thing is revisited again, and addressed with people (by which I mean vapers) who are not hung up on idea of "eCigs saved my life" but are interested in presenting a neutrally written article, then I think it is possible all this could be removed from the lede. But convincing fellow vapers of this would be around 10 times easier than convincing opposition that ecig article need not mention "smoking cessation" to be an effective topic article for WHAT is an ecig.

I'm reading and re-reading all of these latest posts, but for this idea I think the point is well-made; that one possible explanation for the anti-vaping bias is because it is a reaction to overblown marketing claims that it is a smoking cessation product. But that's still bias. It's just bias with a reason, and an explanation.

And if you think of that silent, unspoken idea while reading the article, the horrific nature of the article begins to make sense. It's one long argument against the idea that vaping is a healthy and effective alternative to tobacco cigarettes, but it doesn't 1st spell out the fundamental premise that it spends the rest of the article arguing against. Maybe that would be the "straw that broke the camel's back" in terms of getting these fat and lazy beaurocrats off their flabby back-sides. Simply advocate including the thesis "ecigarettes are a safe, healthy and effective alternative to smoking" in the Lede, and then use that to introduce all the arguments in opposition to that thesis. IDK. I'm just looking for ways to destroy that Lede, and at this point, given the recalcitrance of the other Editors, I'm not particular on how to do it.

Another idea is to undermine the foundations of the article by getting rid of the reliable sources in the article, and getting rid of the select passages that are then left unsourced. Or, since one Editor claims to want to have a 1:1 correlation between what is in the article and the source material (vs. paraphrasing or syntheizing the article's content from the sourced material). I don't trust his motives. Maybe he's well-intentioned and, like he claims, wants to "play it safe", but as you've discovered the initial "uncertainty" comment in the Lede doesn't have a direct connection to sourced material, so on the one hand, all new and changed material must have direct, reliable sources, but the worst, and most obviously wrong sentence in the article does not. I wonder if that's not by design. Selectively cherry-picking standards so that there is "forgiveness" for those standards when arguing in favor of keeping old, bad and biased material, but then expecting stringent standards when trying include good, unbiased and new material. These kinds of games are not, and cannot, be played by amateurs, and that's why I keep hitting the word Bureaucrat as often as possible.

 

[Jman8]

I am possibly done looking thru Archives for what I was looking for before. I dunno. Sometimes I feel like being diligent and other times I feel like I'm wasting time.

A lot of the older Talk pages specify Wiki rules and both sides are pitting Wiki policy against opposing editors on that front. I observe a good number of instances where that results in ending a discussion.

After reviewing Wikipedia NPOV Tutorial (for like my 15th time), I am (again) convinced that the problem with the lede is more along lines that it's claims are not being attributed, even while they are being cited. I think if those attributions were made, it would present the bias, and non neutral POV that is present in the lede.

But I anticipate resistance to this, and along lines that "this is what most mainstream articles are saying." So, it will take some time, persistence and citing of WP policies to overcome that, but I do think it can be won, based on the mere fact that these items are being cited but not attributed and thus creating a biased piece. So biased that I again challenge any reader to find me another article on Wikipedia where the topic is about something ingested/inhaled into the human body and that cites a source making the idiotic claim "that the benefits and risks are uncertain" which in reality, this article's source doesn't even say that, and yet this is how the main topic article reads.

 

[skoony]

Clear evidence about the safety of e-cigarettes is lacking,

this really gets me.
this should read "clear evidence of harm from e-cigarettes is lacking".
regards
mike
i should state Jman did not say this. he was quoting a source.

 

[Wallace_Frampton]

this really gets me.
this should read "clear evidence of harm from e-cigarettes is lacking".
regards
mike
i should state Jman did not say this. he was quoting a source.

You know, you could set-up a Wikipedia Editor account in about 5 minutes, and then say exactly that in the "Discussion Pages". I'd avoid making changes to the article as they'll get immediately reverted, but having lots of dissenting opinions from lots of different sources might give other Editors with more experience the courage to weigh-in.

 

[skoony]

You know, you could set-up a Wikipedia Editor account in about 5 minutes, and then say exactly that in the "Discussion Pages". I'd avoid making changes to the article as they'll get immediately reverted, but having lots of dissenting opinions from lots of different sources might give other Editors with more experience the courage to weigh-in.

[redacted]: i was a little froggy last night.

click,whiiiiiiz,plop!
here fishy fishy,here fishy fishy.
regards
mike

 

[Jman8]

You know, you could set-up a Wikipedia Editor account in about 5 minutes, and then say exactly that in the "Discussion Pages". I'd avoid making changes to the article as they'll get immediately reverted, but having lots of dissenting opinions from lots of different sources might give other Editors with more experience the courage to weigh-in.

Takes a certain kind of person who wants to edit Wikipedia pages. And a whole other kind of person that would want to work on the eCig page. I'm usually more happy with my time playing Freecell than I am working on what seems hopeless, and embarrassing, all at the time time.

 

[Wallace_Frampton]

Takes a certain kind of person who wants to edit Wikipedia pages. And a whole other kind of person that would want to work on the eCig page. I'm usually more happy with my time playing Freecell than I am working on what seems hopeless, and embarrassing, all at the time time.

I think it's important to not overstate what "editing a wikipedia page" is all about. Sometimes I just go around and correct spelling or grammar errors. I correct a page about the Marine Corps, and they changed it right back. So I changed it again, and they changed it right back. Then I realized that what I was supposed to do is post on the Marine Corps' "Discussion Pages" that the damn Marine Corps were "edit warring" with me. And then it hit me.

Well duh. No s**t. War is what Marines DO. Why in the world would anyone complain about that, and expect to be taken seriously. So, my point here is that even the smallest and most innocuous changes are doomed to failure sometimes. Wikipedia policy is not the only obstacle, sometimes you are fighting with straight-up professional killers. I decided that stupid little apostrophe showing that something belonged to the "Expeditionary Brigade" (it was the "Expeditionary Brigade's" thing, and not the "Expeditionary Brigades" thing). I just decided that there was no way to win a fight against a determined Marine, so I quit.

I don't feel that way about the e-cigarette article. These people are weak-kneed collectivists and bureaucrats that cannot withstand the sustained efforts of better informed people that care more about the article than they do. Eventually, either the merits of the case will win the day, or we'll just wear them down into submission.

 

[Wallace_Frampton]

Some fireworks in the Discussion Pages today, and some of the skulkers have come out of the woodwork. If anyone reading this has ever been tempted to weigh-in, now is a good time as it's like one of those "Bruce Lee vs. 20 Ninjas" movies atm. Bruce could use a hand. Or a foot, even.

 

[skoony]

Bump.
So how is the editing going?
Mike