e-cigarette Wikipedia article needs help

[Wallace_Frampton]

i am getting the distinct impression you are not listening to anything anyone is trying to tell in this thread.

I'll be reading, and re-reading every single post in this thread. I almost never read anything deeply the 1st time. I have to let some things sink it, roll around a bit, and in the background my CPU (that's what I call my brain) makes connections and processes things, and then I'll start asking more questions as I'm able. So, if someone is wondering whether or not they are casting their "seeds upon the stones" or fertile earth, the "earth" is FERTILE. GUARANTEE you that every word posted will get read at least 3 times. It's just how I do. I start at the beginning of the thread at page 1, post 1 and read what I wrote (with half an eye towards what I said wrong, what I left out, etc...) and then I go through the whole thread, start to finish. The links posted will get read, the recommendations that I educate myself will get taken to heart and efforts will be made to do exactly that. I understand the difference between doing your own research and wanting to be spoon-fed (with all the negative connotations about the 2nd option; people that won't dig around and do their own work.

The FDR reference was about out-voting this international cabal trying to suppress fair and unbiased treatment of the subject of e-cigarettes, vaping, etc... I aim my messages at the people I am looking for. The idea is that the number of Wikipedia Editors is not static. People in general assume that the universe is bounded, and if there are a finite number of Wikipedia Editors and there are more "bad" ones than "good" ones, most people throw-up their hands, curse democracy and feel good about having failed without even trying. The failure is not due to the numbers and the ratio of good to bad, the failure was the assumption that you cannot expand those numbers. FDR made more Supreme Court Justices. Pro-Vaping advocates can make more Wikipedia Editors. Takes an email account and about 5 minutes of someone's time. No more difficult than signing up at an online forum. If you can do that, you can be a Wikipedia Editor.

Conventional Wisdom on Leadership is that you are not supposed to respond to the doomsayers and naysayers and the people that would rather complain about a problem than do something about it. The reason for this is because it lends credibility and life to an element that might otherwise be marginalized and ignored. However, in contradiction to that "rule", I have decided that there is a particularly negative and toxic element that I feel needs to be addressed, and that is the people that require those around them to fail in order to feel "OK" about their place in life, society, etc... While it may be true that "Big Tobacco", "Big Pharma" and "Big Charity" (I made that one up, because it's true based on what I read from the "Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada") those people are nameless, faceless, ambiguous notions that are difficult to define and impossible to hold accountable. Makes no sense to me to focus attention on the enemy that one cannot do much about while ignoring the 800 lb gorilla chattering in your ear incessantly about how everything is doomed, success is impossible, "no one here wants success", "no one here will help you", "you talk to much", "you ask too many questions", etc... Note the pathology, and how the persistent insistence on failure does not serve any purpose of any group, but only the purpose of one individual within that group. Q: What purpose does it serve? A: Facilitates, supports, encourages, excuses, predicts failure. Is that Big Tobacco talking, the "invisible enemy", "out there" somewhere, or is it simpler to understand, easier to see and much easier to deal with?

You can't fight "Big Tobacco" and "Big Pharma" if you can't get things straight within your own group. These large corporate entities rely on the inability of average people to organize effectively and achieve a level of functionality without the massive amount of resources and time the well-organized conglomerates have. This here is the 1st battle, taking place right in front of you, unfolding live as you read this. This is the dawning of your new awareness, and the opportunity for you to realize what is happening and the opportunity to make the decision to do something different, instead of repeating the same patterns that have all failed before. The definition of insanity, as they say, is repeating the same thing over and over again, each time expecting different results. It's time to do something different.

 

[Wallace_Frampton]

I'd want to know exactly who I was fighting against before I ever volunteered. Many have tried, and many have died. So to speak.
For whatever reason, wiki is never going to change their position on this matter until they're told to.
Find out who's behind that curtain and I might give it a shot.

Out-vote those who are behind the curtain, and "who" they are becomes irrelevant.

 

[Wallace_Frampton]

It would have to be maintained, that would be the whole point of the team of volunteers.

Truthfully, "maintenance" is the easy part. It simply involves saying "No" to anyone that wants to change something. Note what's happening here. On the one hand, recreating the article is too difficult, because "they" won't let it happen, but then if the article IS changed, then "they" will be able to change it right back. Well, BOTH of those situations can't be harder than the other. It can't be "impossible to create" a better article and then be "impossible to maintain" a better article.

Here's what "maintenance" looks like.

Improved article is created and submitted for consideration.
After debate a vote is taken
After vote, article goes "live"
Agents of the evil multinational conglomeration try to pollute the good article with bad data, research, etc...
Agents are slapped down
Agents come back en masse, with 4 of 5 corrupt Editors to ram-rod their changes (via Democratic Process)
A broadcast email goes out to the 20 to 50 Wikipedia Editors that created the improved article originally.
A vote is taken, and evil Agents of the Conglomerate are out-voted 35 to 5.
Press Release of the attempt at polluting a fair and unbiased article on Wikipedia and Big Tobacco, et all is "outed" and those 5 evil Editors are banned and never allowed to edit Wikipedia again.
Beautiful girl in gossamer dress throws a leg over the back of the horse and rests her head on the back of our hero as he steers the horse towards the horizon, and they cast a long shadow as they ride across that infinite expanse of open prairie and Fade to Black...

 

[Wallace_Frampton]

As i understand it the FDR post was Wallace asking you people who have tried and failed to edit the wikipedia page to help. Obviously a single editor fighting against the established opposition doesn't work. A team of volunteers could make a difference. If a team of pro vaping volunteers worked together against the established opposition editors then real positive changes could be made to the page.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

It doesn't even have to be that skilled. Raw numbers of people familiar with vaping and aware of a consensus on the facts behind an article that has already been created off-site (off-Wikipedia). Designate one, two or three "talkers" to represent the group, to answer questions and engage in discussion with non-group Wikipedia Editors. Maybe negotiate. Maybe the other Editors are right about certain things. Maybe there is some "give and take". Depends on how sincere, honest and correct "they" are. Work with "them", talk with "them", discuss, debate and deal with "them" and then there's a vote and whoever has the most votes wins.

Maybe most people don't know that all Wikipedia decisions are made by democratic process, aka "voting"? It's a numbers game. And in a numbers game, the onus is on the paid lobbyists because they either have a history of bias, or the are SPA (Single Purpose, or Special Purpose Accounts) and that is too obvious to hide. People on one side can say "sure, we're organized group of average people here to do what's right for Wikipedia" and the other side has to say "sure, we've all been hired by tobacco companies to say and vote like what we are supposed to". If you were a judge, and had to decide who was who (average people and paid stooges) how hard do you think it would be to decide who was who. One clue: Who are the people blindly and stupidly supporting junk science and discredited research?

 

[Wallace_Frampton]

I never dabbled in Wiki and this is all new to me.

So, if a committed team got together, with a plan agreed in advance so they didn't start fighting amongst themselves, and assuming the opposition didn't just call in reinforcements, you think a decent Wiki page could be forced through.

If that happened would it stick, or could another group come along in six months and "correct" it? Is it an endless war?

Well if you want to know in advance that once it's "done" it's DONE, the answer is no, it won't ever be. It's just a matter of time before the Vaping article is going to have to include using other chemicals besides nicotine and you don't want kids to be inhaling their anti-histamines at school using something called an "e-cigarette". The articles are constantly evolving as research changes, etc...

And also it's a bad idea to assume that it would need to be "forced through". We don't "force" candidates into office, we vote for them. You got the part about infighting right though. The hardest part of any grassroots (meaning unpaid, non-professional) movement is maintaining group discipline. Some people simply cannot be relied upon to act as a member of a group, but instead will use every opportunity presented to them to make it all about themselves and if that means sacrificing the agenda, plan, goals, time, energy, effort of the group then that's what they will do. So, getting everyone on the same page, and everyone used to the idea that they are sacrificing what they as individuals want in order to achieve what they as members of a group want is an important thing to do. No it won't be easy, simple, painless, flawless, etc... but under the right circumstances people have consistently shown their ability to organize themselves and do what is right and with a minimum of rancor and bloodshed.

Staying clear on the goal makes it easier. For me it's about Lannie living another 10, 20 years and not dying of cancer, heart disease, stroke, etc... It's about the COPD patients I used to see outside the hospital in the "smoking areas", skinny frail old people dying of tobacco poisoning, with a cigarette in one hand and a tank of oxygen in the other, COPD patients putting the lit cigarette into the hole in their tracheotomy pipe in order to smoke it, because some cancer or other prevented them from being able to breath normally.

I could go on. And on. Everyone here could too. We all could talk about the horrors of tobacco, cigarettes, etc... and how revolutionary an improvement we could gift the human race with, by promoting the use of Vaping Devices as a healthier, safer (how many houses have burned down because of vaping?), cheaper alternative. Anyways, it's about THAT. Stay clear on the goal, and the WHY of the goal, and a whole lot of stuff becomes secondary, simple and/or unimportant.

 

[Wallace_Frampton]

If you 'win' the lede you add a veneer of respectability to an otherwise horribly biased entry.

Disagree. If the Lede is "wrong" in some way, no one reads the rest of the article anyways. So it doesn't matter what's wrong with the Body, because no one is reading it.

In contrast, a well-written Lede invites people to continue reading. And if the Lede is right and the body is wrong, at least they read a good Lede.

 

[yuseffuhler]

Disagree. If the Lede is "wrong" in some way, no one reads the rest of the article anyways. So it doesn't matter what's wrong with the Body, because no one is reading it.

In contrast, a well-written Lede invites people to continue reading. And if the Lede is right and the body is wrong, at least they read a good Lede.

Agreed. If I were about to start using electronic cigarettes and I skimmed through the first couple lines and read doom and gloom, I'd stay far away.

 

[Wallace_Frampton]

Agreed. If I were about to start using electronic cigarettes and I skimmed through the first couple lines and read doom and gloom, I'd stay far away.

It's worse than that. What if you, like me at one point, were approaching the age that you promised yourself since you were 19 that you were going to quit smoking. I tried gum, patches, cold turkey, chewing tobacco, etc... and sometimes I quit for half a day, and sometimes I quit for half a year, but I always went back to smoking. Sometimes I'd quit for 3 days, then go back. I never had e-cigarettes as an option.

What if you were trying to kick a 20 year habit and went to wikpedia to see the truth about e-cigarettes (vs. all the marketing hype) and all you read was "just like tobacco" and "just like cigarettes" and "danger of..." and "cancer risk..." and "toxic chemicals..." and "The Heart and Lung Association of Canada wants them banned, and outlawed" and...

That might be the last time a person really has the motivation to quit smoking before they get cancer, or heart disease or have a stroke and then die. Sometimes I would quit smoking for a month or two or three, and when I started back up again, it might be 4 years until I tried to quit again. You can die of smoking-related illnesses in 4 years. So, to my thinking, having a good Wikipedia Article might mean the difference between someone quitting and live, or not quitting and then dying.

 

[Wallace_Frampton]

He keeps on mentioning the lede and not the entire page so a few dedicated editors could just focus on that.

Set the goal attainable, and then attain it. Most important part first. Thanks for the support.

 

[yuseffuhler]

It's worse than that. What if you, like me at one point, were approaching the age that you promised yourself since you were 19 that you were going to quit smoking. I tried gum, patches, cold turkey, chewing tobacco, etc... and sometimes I quit for half a day, and sometimes I quit for half a year, but I always went back to smoking. Sometimes I'd quit for 3 days, then go back. I never had e-cigarettes as an option.

What if you were trying to kick a 20 year habit and went to wikpedia to see the truth about e-cigarettes (vs. all the marketing hype) and all you read was "just like tobacco" and "just like cigarettes" and "danger of..." and "cancer risk..." and "toxic chemicals..." and "The Heart and Lung Association of Canada wants them banned, and outlawed" and...

That might be the last time a person really has the motivation to quit smoking before they get cancer, or heart disease or have a stroke and then die. Sometimes I would quit smoking for a month or two or three, and when I started back up again, it might be 4 years until I tried to quit again. You can die of smoking-related illnesses in 4 years. So, to my thinking, having a good Wikipedia Article might mean the difference between someone quitting and live, or not quitting and then dying.

It's definitely high stakes. As far as making the information known to the most people possible, Wikipedia is probably the number one most effective way possible. I'd love to help out more, and I see where you're coming from. I'm just a random dude with no Wikipedia skills lol.

 

[Wallace_Frampton]

I'm just a random dude with no Wikipedia skills lol.

Perfect. The Marine Corps prefers recruits that have never fired a rifle in their lives, compared to those that think they know what they are doing.

 

[yuseffuhler]

Perfect. The Marine Corps prefers recruits that have never fired a rifle in their lives, compared to those that think they know what they are doing.

Yup. Good analogy there. I'm not sure if that was an offer, but if you'd like I'd love to help out some. Just send me a PM, don't want to clog up this wonderful thread.

 

[skoony]

so when does the wiki page editing start?
mike

 

[philoshop]

Retired1 posted a link earlier in this thread to the previous (and on-going) wiki-battle regarding this issue. Read through that link to get an idea of what you'll be up against. And Jman8 has already told you here what the fight is like. It's not pretty.
I won't discourage anyone who wants to get into it (again) because the wiki page absolutely needs to be changed, but...
Best of luck.

 

[nyiddle]

So I haven't read anything anyone posted in this thread, only because I went to the Wikipedia article to (pretty easily) see that the article is semi-protected.

This means that, unless you're a Wikipedia Editor (someone who is relatively prolific with editing Wikipedia articles) you simply won't be able to edit the page. It's understandable, really, since all the potential conflicting information that could be put on the page. The rules are pretty gosh-darn strict.

 

[philoshop]

The higher-ups at wiki-world have decided that their misinformation on this issue is what's best for all to see. Really makes you wonder about the rest of wiki, doesn't it?

 

[nyiddle]

The higher-ups at wiki-world have decided that their misinformation on this issue is what's best for all to see. Really makes you wonder about the rest of wiki, doesn't it?

The issue was that the information was being contested so much. For that reason it's considered controversial, and many people (both pro-ecig and anti-ecig) were likely putting up information without factual evidence. Among other things, there are still a lot of "question marks", and while the article is poorly formulated now, I think as the history develops there will be more people who will add useful, relevant, factual information.

It's essentially the same reason that the Hitler article is protected. Too many people are too ingrained in their own beliefs and aren't writing factual/appropriate information. Some people are likely just putting their opinion pieces up there. The way Wikipedia articles are formulated is very specific, and for all the flack that Wikipedia gets, they're easily one of the most factually-accurate and (most importantly) frequently updated encyclopedias available.

 

[evan le'garde]

So I haven't read anything anyone posted in this thread, only because I went to the Wikipedia article to (pretty easily) see that the article is semi-protected.

This means that, unless you're a Wikipedia Editor (someone who is relatively prolific with editing Wikipedia articles) you simply won't be able to edit the page. It's understandable, really, since all the potential conflicting information that could be put on the page. The rules are pretty gosh-darn strict.

You really do need to go back and read through the thread. Wallace "is" a Wikipedia editor. There are a couple of other posters in this thread who have had experience of editing Wikipedia also.

 

[evan le'garde]

Don't take this personally but if other users click on this thread and do what you did and just skip to the end and read what you have written then the same problem that readers of the wikipedia page have will occur with this thread. It would be better if you read through this thread.

 

[nyiddle]

Don't take this personally but if other users click on this thread and do what you did and just skip to the end and read what you have written then the same problem that readers of the wikipedia page have will occur with this thread. It would be better if you read through this thread.

Didn't take it personally. I'm usually very thorough, but I skimmed some of this thread, and it doesn't seem worth reading in-depth. There's a lot of circular arguments/not a lot of factual information/bias in all directions and not a lot is said in way too many words. It's actually quite impressive how little is actually said in this thread.

I think someone, a day or two ago, said, "Jeez, you people would argue with a fencepost." I think that applies to this thread, perhaps moreso than the thread that the person said that in.

All that said, if Wallace is a Wikipedia editor, I doubt he's the prolific one who has been administering the majority of changes on the e-cig Wikipedia page since as early as ~2010. If he is, then what's the problem?