text:
User:Andrevan

You can edit this page!

Welcome to my Wikipedia user page, est. 2003.

On Wikipedia anyone, even a kid, or a random person on the street, or in a library, can help write or contribute to (including gnomes, even little gnomes help) the corpus of human knowledge. Be bold! I was a kid myself when I started editing the encylopedia, and gaining community trust through advanced permissions, and I learned a lot through the years I spent with the system and process. The community is an evolving place, and a lot has changed since then. What hasn't changed is the radical ad hoc simplicity of the wiki model and culture of getting shit done without red tape, or obstacles to quick change. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy although it does have increasingly inaccurately named functionaries that I was once one of.

You can edit this user page right now. If you do, please make it useful, or funny, or both. On Wikipedia, vandalism isn't allowed and will be quickly reverted, though particularly funny vandalism may have some form of immortality, see WP:BJAODN. I'm giving you permission to be WP:BOLD and edit my user page right now, but I will probably revert you if I don't agree with your changes. Well, unless you actually make this page better by adding insightful information, wikilinks, references, or fixing mistakes. Wikipedia is a work in progress. Red wikilinks (meaning both new articles, and new users) are welcome! I'm not precious or particular, and I'm here to learn and listen.

Wikipedia is an experiment in decentralized decision-making by WP:CONSENSUS and it doesn't work perfectly, but it's better than all the other options that we know of. Wikipedia is not a democracy, but you can use your voice of reason to help discuss when disputes arise. We do base all of our content on verifiable, reliable 3rd party material. So no propaganda sources allowed for use on political articles. That has the binding power of consensus. Fox News is downgraded to generally unreliable for politics as of 2020 and should be used with caution otherwise.

Reliability of Wikipedia: Wikipedia is the best encyclopedia and general reference work. It helps Google provide good search results. It is a great nonprofit educational resource. You should consider donating your time and/or money because it can be very rewarding. See the donation page or Community portal.

WP:42

What should we include? How about everything? OK, not literally everything. But since we have articles on (nearly) every commercially-released video game, every sitcom, every TV show... to say nothing of every monarch of England, France, Rome, etc... if some topic or item seems worthy of considering for inclusion, and if it has significant coverage in published reliable sources... very likely, it is worthy of coverage here. It is probably worthy of some discussion, at least!

Sandbox
  💥 💥 💥 If you really want to edit a page, you can go ahead and edit it right here, right now. 💥 💥 💥 🌞 🌞 🌞 This is a sandbox where you can safely try editing. I'll leave stuff here but clean it periodically. 🌞 🌞 🌞

you can edit here!

About me

I was known as and signed as just "Andre" for many years. In retrospect, why didn't I have an acuté accént? I knew how to make one for Pokémon. My pronouns are he/him, but I don't care if you want to use neutral pronouns or words. "Guys" is a gender neutral term IMHO.

I started editing Wikipedia after reading an article about wikis in a computer magazine obtained from Barnes & Noble. My first edit was List of dragons. My first creation was Microsoft Agent. I was active on IRC and joined the conversation on freenode, learning how to revert vandalism. I became an admin in 2004. I was nominated by node_ue and passed unopposed with 20 supports, wow, it's been a while huh? I had 1800 edits at the time. I was also very interested in Gentoo Linux, writing QBASIC, primitive JavaScript, HTML, and TI-BASIC at the time. One of the cool things was making a user page layout or a signature CSS tag and seeing new users copy my "work."

I later became a mediator, a bureaucrat in 2007, IRC op, meta-admin, sometime writer of thoughts that have later become those shorthand policy shortcuts: WP:RIG, WP:DAQ. As a bureaucrat, I renamed over 1000 people and promoted over 20 administrators. I closed one bureaucrat discussion and participated in several. I've also nominated 4 admins though they are long since inactive now, and blocked almost 100 people. Because MEDCOM was prominently advertised and my name was alphabetically high up, I would often get pinged by strange random new or anonymous editors with weird disputes. My page was also vandalized somewhat often, which was a kind of badge of honor or a rite of passage back then. 244(!) (which is centijimbos) people are watching this page. Because I've been around for a while and was a known quantity, I was even once used as a baseline for a successful sockpuppet investigation. Also, I forgot about this, but check this out: Burma or Myanmar? I've created over 4700 pages across namespaces on Wikipedia, somehow, and at least 65 real mainspace articles, with over 38,000 live edits, and deleted over 700 pages as an admin. I am currently Wikipedian number 3273 by edit count (finally cracked the top 5k woo!). I'm running about a 70-80% accuracy in deletion discussions with over 500 AFDs participated in.

Believe it or not, in 20 years of editing, 2022 is my most active year in terms of raw edit count (tho, I never used to use Twinkle)! On really less than half of that, 3-4 high months. I've always felt the pull of editing in the summer, like a good book on the chaise longue, rich in intrigue and the trembling of anticipation. Wikipedia maxes the dopamine drip for the hyperverbal. My summer vacations from school, I rarely attended summer camp, I instead spent the summers playing on the computer and swimming laps in a wooded pool. Now as a geriatric Millennial who gets paid to manage software development, I can feel the fall feeling and pretty soon I will go into hibernation or have real life to contend with. But in the meantime I've gone on a spree cleaning up my old articles and wading deep into the belly of the beast, it proves that it's never too late to learn to play the piano.

I got to meet and make a lot of online friends, I'm not the greatest at keeping in touch with people, but feel free to reach out and rekindle the magic any time.

Why Wikipedia works
Wikipedia works because it's fundamentally founded on the principle and value system of agile software development as developed by Kent Beck and Ward Cunningham, creator of the original WikiWikiWeb. This is also how many other open source and free software projects operate. Wikitext has a lot of similarity with program code. That's why diffing and version control work so well. These are the tools and workflows that were developed for use with git, Apache Subversion, concurrent versions system etc. Wikipedia is more semantic than a normal corpus of documents. It goes beyond hypertext due to the rich templating, different kinds of nesting logic, redirection, namespacing, forking, branching, etc.

 * Change should be easy and cheap
 * Rapid iterations and tight feedback loops
 * Don't gatekeep - collective ownership
 * Don't plan too far in advance - resolution, clarity are inversely proportional to roadmap distance (time) in decision-making (WP:CRYSTAL, WP:NOTNEWS)
 * Don't set things in stone
 * Change is the only constant
 * Embrace new information opportunistically
 * Learn from mistakes aggressively in real-time
 * Fail fast
 * Pivot
 * 2 heads are better than 1 - pair on decisions
 * Don't do with a committee what you can do with a pair
 * Don't do with a cross-team dependency what you can do with an autonomous team
 * Rule of 3: extract a pattern or abstraction no earlier than the 3rd case
 * Distribute and empower from the bottom-up
 * Working product is more important than comprehensive documentation
 * Process and ceremony are adaptable and must be based on intro-/retrospection
 * The backlog - it's a stack-ranked priority list of shovel-ready tasks approached iteratively in an ad hoc manner
 * You can't steer a ship unless the rudder is moving
 * Keep calm and deliver value
 * Just-in-time solving of problems
 * Organic, emergent, and evolutionary
 * Track and optimize honest metrics
 * LISTEN to feedback and bottom-up decisions
 * EMPOWER the people who feel the pain to make decisions
 * OUTCOMES not output

on pedanticness considered harmful

Because Wikipedia's culture is largely borne out of the engineering and science/social sciences world, it has inherited a strong cultural emphasis on correctness, exactness, and adherence to the letter of rules. However because Wikipedia is a countercultural exercise that inherited the early Internet Silicon Valley California ideology of libertarianism combined with the UC Berkeley, Steve Jobs-on-acid Atari in the 1970s, hippie Eric Schmidt-at-Burning Man utopian earnestness, surrealism, humor, gestalt, art, music, pervaded the early, freewheeling days of Wikipedia. There were Bomis babes. There were some unusual characters pretending to be something they weren't. There were hucksters, scam artists, and also some brilliant and very unique contributors. It wasn't pure and it definitely wasn't stuffy. It may have been kind of corrupt, plucky, but it meant well, and you must have some nuance when judging the early project. Constraints may inspire creativity, but creativity needs chaos, space and is connected to anarchy - when you tighten the screws and put on a business suit, the innovators often move on. Still, the community has always had leading lights of compassion, peace, and friendliness to newcomers. It has generally tried to avoid being punitive when addressing abuse and concerns. In fact the community has given a massively long leash to some extremely pernicious, dangerous contributors at times. Other times the community has been quite harsh and aggressive on certain transgressions. What I want to talk about is something different: pedantry.

Pedantry is about outcomes vs. outputs. Sometimes it's important to be exact. Like in cooking or chemistry (which are the same thing). Sometimes it's important to be able to abstract things to a high degree, like in physics, linguistics and computer science. Abstraction is the process or property of isolating a mess to be able to reason meaningfully and operate on a subject or object. Encapsulation is the ability to compartmentalize or insulate the exceptions to apply a map (see map-territory relation). When you consider pedantry harmful, you're eliminating the rough edges, adding offramps and slack into the system. It's a form of practical cybernetic elasticity. It's useful to have a flexible structure because it bends, and not breaks.

Discretion is discretion for a reason. It's not a misuse of the system. It is not required to find a way to make the exception fit the letter of the rule. That's why it's an exception. The important thing is a good, common sense outcome. If you can shortcut the proceedings and all the ceremony, and achieve an outcome that improves the project, that is preferable to following the process for the same, let alone a worse outcome. Pedants are often Gaming the system, scrupulously cultivating constraints to trap up the works, Wikilawyering, often achieving a worse outcome with more fuss. They may acknowledge that a better outcome could exist, but their hands are tied by following the rule. Thankfully, creators of living systems knew about politics and system-gamers, that's why they designed elastic clauses like WP:IAR.

This same phenomenon infests governments, corporations, online projects, you name it. Rule-followers who don't understand how to cut through red tape and get shit done. Pedants often wring hands on the idea that they should avoid any possible appearance of impropriety or inconclusivity. They are more concerned with making sure the outcome is defensible, documenting a paper trail for ass-covering, not that it be swift. Justice delayed can be justice denied at times. We owe due process and swiftness to the project and its contributors. It's better to deliver the value quickly. There are a lot of revolving doors - outcomes that can be reversed. If we're at 80%, it's usually good enough to pull the trigger, relying on instinct, because politics is an art, not a science, for the most part. So don't worry so much and trust your instincts.

This was something that the old breed of WP:ROUGE [sic] admins did reflexively, sometimes pissing people off or getting into hot water, but we traded some accuracy for speed. This is now a legacy model, and prospective/current admins will likely be sanctioned or blocked or otherwise ostracized for defending or mimicking the cowboyism and the perceived battleground mentality of the olden days. The project has changed, but perhaps somewhat to its detriment in some ways. So consider this at your own risk! I am no longer an admin and I won't be. But it is instructive to make sure we do not allow stultifying bureaucracy to gum up the works. Gatekeeping is dangerous, as is process adherence, losing the spirit. Projects grow and flourish when they have a spark of creativity, which necessitates some freewheelingness. IT HAS TO BE FUN! AND A LITTLE CRAZY! WP:OGTW#10 WP:TROUT or else your project slowly dries up as all the zany vibes are squeezed out of it. The process is negotiable and it's a means to an end, not the end-in-itself.

So next time someone, purposefully or accidentally, ignores a rule and closes/does something that seems uncontroversial, as I was wont to do in my heyday, to occasional great consternation, which I do regret, but I digress... ask yourself, next time that happens, or anything else that seems like admins shortcutting the ceremony and going rogue, would the outcome have been different if a different uninvolved closer had closed it? Or are you just harping on the rules and not focusing on whether anyone was harmed? Wikipedia is pragmatic and preventative, not punitive, so injury must be substantiated by evidence toward outcomes. (PLEASE NOTE this is not excusing mistakes I made myself, or asking for forgiveness, or the slate to be wiped clean on the times when I jumped the gun and in doing so, created more fuss than necessary, or did something else that broke the rules in a way that actually did cause harm however small OR large.) Next time it happens, ask yourself if you're more concerned with the APPEARANCE of propriety and process-following-correctness, or about the IMPACT that the decisions are making (good or bad). I'm not looking to reconsider my own actions or a referendum on that. I'm looking to make an abstract, philosophical point as I often do, which might itself feel pedantic, but it's NOT! It's about big ideas. Wiki is not a court of law, and we are not lawyers or lawmakers. Very few of the things we do here are about life and death. We have to be here to build an encyclopedia. Move fast and break things. Learn by doing. Fail, learn, and fail again. Be bold!

TLDR: Lighten up, focus on the principles and values, not the specific process. If you're not WP:AGF and having fun, you're doing it wrong. It's OK to learn by making mistakes. Don't create a punitive or a pedantic environment. Wikipedia should encourage breaking the rules, or short circuiting a bureaucratic process, in the interest of expediency, lightening the load, and empowering good users with broad discretion and the ability to act instinctively. That doesn't mean a green light to do whatever all the time. It means you should focus on whether anyone or anything was harmed, and whether outcomes improved the project and peoples' lives. It also means we need not give infinite chances to obvious bad actors.

WP:BESTNP The perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good. 80/20 rule, pareto principle. Good enough is good enough, ship it, iterate, and move on. What's the simplest thing that can possibly work. Don't solve a problem that you don't have yet. Wikipedia is worse is better.

The egg came first

Chicken-egg problems are resolveable inductively: assume the simplest thing you're trying to prove/accomplish, and test your hypothesis. A contradiction (failure) proves the null hypothesis. The egg came before the chicken in world history. See the article.

This is a practical proof of the value of iterative development. Any sufficiently complex system evolved from a simpler system. Who is John Gall?

Other questions? The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty, it's 100% full with both air and water/milk. The glass is both 50% full of milk, and 50% full of air, it's both 50% empty of air, and 50% empty of milk. In many cases, the false dichotomy of our binary bicameral minds and realities, lead us to ignore the both/neither option. Most of the time, reality is actually a hypercube/tesseract with a superposition of states, i.e. 4, and not 2 options (A, B, not-AB, AB). Sometimes reality is just reality and not a bias.

What it means is that your machinery that you use to read the universe are faulty, and you're assembling a partial picture with pieces. (See: reality tunnel, Marshall McLuhan, medium is the message, map-territory relation) Those pieces are logic, and evidence. You need to follow those places and not go back when you encounter cognitive dissonance, conditioning, fear, insanity, irrationality, etc. It is not a given that everything is going to be binary and symmetrical. 2 is a powerful number, that's very true, but the world is complex. Some things come in 3s, 5s, 9s, and 43s. See also prime numbers, Riemann conjecture, P vs NP In fact the universe is not locally real.

Consider a spherical cow. In reality, nothing is perfectly round. Our minds apply an approximation. We also tend to round things to base 10. It's not a coincidence that we have 5 digits on each hand and foot. In fact some properties of base 12 are mathematically interesting in this universe, and perhaps polydactyly might have been more common at some point in the past. Another example is 2pi, when it's really half-tau. It's hubris to claim that science is done, the Standard Model is complete, and there is nothing more to heaven and Earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy, Horatio.

Emergent properties are phenomena that extrapolate from initial conditions. Flocking is one, or swarm intelligence. Another way to think of it is that complex behavior can emerge from simpler automata like the game of life or Langton's ant. So when we construct our iterative and incremental realities, if we introduce error, like a false dichotomy or a sorting or forcing function, that error will be amplified in the final result. It also means that small things like a pebble into a pond, can introduce a ripple effect or butterfly effect. Or how a lot of AI is racist. Like the tail wagging the dog, it can move the mountain with sufficient leverage. It is observed that 30% of a school of fish can start to break a certain way, and then the rest of the school may yet end up going that way.

History is a combination of macro-forces and microscale great person theory. The world is a lot smaller than you think, and we all do make a difference in the body politic and the zeitgeist. Culture isn't a single thing, it's an aggreggate of many small processes, like a garden or a yogurt. You need to plant a seed or get a sourdough starter. There can be culture jamming, and viral memes that hijack the system and create cults. There are also virtuous ideas that create a new philosophical school of thought or an artistic movement. It's built on mimicry, inspiration, and great artists steal (no copyvios please though!) There's a reason why nobody really knows who created Mediterranean cuisine. It's a great salad bowl/melting pot/amalgam of syncretism and virtuous theft or borrowing going back millennia. Same thing with a sprachbund and loanwords.

Baby steps are the only way to accomplish large things. It's said that Rome wasn't built in a day, but the corollary to that is that each neighborhood of Rome wasn't built in a day, nor was each individual domicile. Each marble brick laid in the homes of Rome had to be mined from a quarry that wasn't built in a day. As an miner knows, you need to extend the shaft carefully, testing along the way with a canary, and quickly retreat (rollback/revert) when you have a bad indicator. You need to read the room and taste the soup (see: Rands in Repose). We stand on the shoulders of giants. It's turtles all the way down. All abstractions are to some extent leaky abstractions, and all code hides a hack somewhere: from TCP/IP to the Von Neumann architecture. Everything on some level is duct-taped together.

Trust and decentralization
The global computer network is a messy place. There are issues. Many people are good, trustworthy, and some are sociopaths or utility monsters who effectively manipulate the system. Most people are good people with some flaws who occasionally mess up or do bad things. Naively, Wikipedia is set up to be easily vulnerable to well poisoning, copyright violation, self promotional paid editing or COI editing, sockpuppetry, meatpuppetry, Wikibullying, other forms of Long term abuse. There's also an extremely long WP:ROPE for Fresh starts, Right to vanish, or general 2nd chances granted by the community. The community can occasionally be capricious and it is sensitive to mob mentality. Also, many of the desires and behaviors of the community evolved organically over time, and norms shift as rigor and structure replace values and principles, with lessons, learnings, and complex Byzantine apparatus. This can sometimes serve to scare away, or discourage well-meaning newcomers who don't have a tough hide or a thick skin to navigate complexity. It can also produce bad results. The community may penalize or call out well-meaning people for political or toe-over-the-line technicalities [not talking about myself, I had feet over several lines at one point]. It can also occasionally overlook bad actors and allow the system to fall prey to their mistakes, such as the many cases of editors who have bulk added bad information, copyright violations, non-notable stuff, insidious POV pushing or misrepresented sources.

Brigading is a known phenomenon and a major problem. Asynchronous warfare and unilateral disarmament are a problem. It takes truly dynamic, patient, and thoughtful behavior to counter the stacked deck: by which I mean, honest, good people, don't cheat, and bad people do, which gives them a kind of iterated prisoner's dilemma advantage, that's why some people think nice guys finish last. They're wrong of course - tough reciprocal altruism (see tit-for-tat), or maybe we could call it strong opinions, weakly held, can be a very effective game theoretic strategy. Institutions, mechanisms, and feedback loops are necessary. I've been on the other side briefly, and I can say we aren't it feels like we ARE doing a n adequate swell job of giving good editors the help they need to deal with bad actions.

What do I mean by that? I mean that the patience of well-meaning people here and there, who are willing to do extremely frustrating argumentation for free, doesn't scale when you're dealing with the infinite patience of a 13-year old guzzling caffeine and ready to rumble. Also, many of the people willing to do the frustrating argumentation are going to be folks who aren't acting with the best interest of the project at heart. So we need to design a system that rewards acting with good interest, and which can accurately locate and dispense with mistakes or bad-faith edits. The system is a lot better at doing this than it was in the early days, but there seem to be fewer well-meaning contributors who aren't jaded or burnt out.

There's a well-known phenomenon that when you ask someone to sign up for something, even something free and beneficial, if you make them fill out a bunch of forms, and work with uncooperative people at the DMV or the post office or the IRS to get it done, they might just give up and do something else. So those who are left are the ones who have unusual traits. The odds are good, but the goods are odd. The Cynic's Guide (WP:CGTW) #18

Wikipedia relies on WP:AGF to work. It also relies that the good people speak up, rather than succumb to fear of saying the wrong thing. Being bold, and also providing psychological safety rather than punishing dissent. That's why it works when it does work: the power of a robust debate in the public square. Solutions like the blockchain address the trustless nature of online transactions. I wrote in 2018 this set of thoughts about a hash-based system to defeat sockpuppetry. There are other schemes we could devise. We need better tools because I would say that the existing tools are hit-or-miss, and there is plenty of evidence for that.

On robust debate in the public square
One of the most important tools we have to keep the project working well is the social norm. If we norm intellectual hygiene: skepticism, logic, rationality, avoiding fallacious reasoning, we create a self-correcting, robust tool to make smarter decisions. The point of logical debate is to come to the root of an idea.

That doesn't mean we're debating for sport. Don't come down like a ton of bricks, don't WP:TEXTWALL, don't WP:BLUDGEON, but also don't throw these terms around willy nilly in accusation either. Sometimes truly complex topics need to be worked around and examined. Eventually, you need to disagree and commit, but strong opinions weakly held means making a clear, crisp, sharp position and not a wishy-washy one. Humor and civility are important too, and one must soften one's blows in context. After all, this is conversing with another human being, so have empathy.

Nonetheless, we should not spare the sharp clarity of intellect, and that means logic. Some people prefer to use the term "discussion" than "debate," but then many people mistake a discussion for a "vote" or a "request for comment" being a simple question and answer loop. So let's not forget that when a point is in "dispute," you are now debating that point, whether you wish to use a pugnacious connotation or a more collaborative one. I prefer to think of robust debate as a civil, and respectful activity, but remember to check for understanding and do not belabor.

Debating a point means refuting the central point and offering specific evidence, and arguments. Evidence and arguments can be well-formed, or they can be faulty. An argument is constructed via a graph of premises, much like a decision tree or an abstract syntax tree or diagramming sentences. It's not incivil to attack an argument, even aggressively, so long as we stay in the realm of the abstract, don't repeat yourself, and remember to respond consciously to feedback by listening. Wiki is not a courtroom or a parliamentary chamber. Still, there is value in the common rules of evidence and common logical fallacies.

Common objections (from rules of evidence, U.S. courts)
Wikipedia is not a legal system. We're all volunteers, there are no judges (except WP:ARBCOM), there are no juries (except the consensus of our peers), there are no sentences (except blocks and bans), but we do construct articles using admitted evidence, almost like the testimony of witnesses and affidavit or deposition statements of sorts, we do qualify experts, and cross-examine and impeach or discredit other arguments. Wikipedia is indeed a social system which contains rules, norms, practices, processes, values, principles, and the construction of narratives and arguments to advance positions. Wikipedia can also occasionally be an adversarial setting or a setting in which one encounters asynchronous information and spin, POV pushers, filibustering, sophistry, play-acting, sealioning, or garden variety ignorance and irrationality. The rules of legal evidence are a baseline of civil code and civil procedure, and civility is key to what we do here. Keeping a cool head and avoiding ad hominem, by focusing on the content and the arguments, can be difficult, but I have found that the rules of evidence offer a lot of clarity and interesting parallels. It's not wikilawyering or gaming the system to know the principles of civil social thought that may be generalizable, and apply them to logic and rational discourse and inquiry.
 * Leading (see also: begging the question)
 * Irrelevant
 * Speculation
 * Prejudicial effect outweighs probative value, or, inflammatory
 * Asked and answered
 * Vague, confusing, misleading, misstatement/misreading
 * Argumentative/badgering
 * Repetitious
 * Lacks foundation
 * Improper opinion
 * Answer wasn't responsive to the question
 * Hearsay (out of court statements)
 * An exception to hearsay is a statement not being offered for the truth, but simply that it was said (attributed WP:RSOPINION).
 * A statement by a party opponent (e.g. a self-description or admission) is not hearsay since it goes directly to the issue at hand and may be tried as a fact.
 * Another exception is an expert opinion. A qualified expert may only opine when offered as an expert in their field, as established in proper evidence (WP:V WP:RS). Otherwise, it's an improper opinion.
 * Improper character evidence
 * Lack of personal knowledge
 * Out of scope
 * Fruit of the poisonous tree

Common fallacies and cognitive biases

 * Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
 * Straw man
 * Appeal to authority
 * What this means is that just because someone is in charge, pulling rank doesn't prove an argument. NOT that expert opinions in their field aren't admissible.
 * Another variation on this is "This is the way it's always been done" aka Appeal to tradition
 * False equivalence
 * False dilemma
 * Cherry picking
 * No true Scotsman
 * Moving the goalposts
 * Argument from silence
 * Ad hominem
 * Argumentum ad populum
 * I'm entitled to my opinion
 * Tu quoque (whataboutism, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS)
 * Efficient market hypothesis
 * Laffer curve
 * Fundamental attribution error
 * Fallacy of composition
 * Quoting out of context
 * Motte-and-bailey fallacy
 * McNamara fallacy
 * Moralistic fallacy
 * Naturalistic fallacy
 * Prosecutor's fallacy
 * Psychologist's fallacy
 * Gambler's fallacy
 * Hasty generalization
 * False analogy
 * Argument from ignorance
 * Appeal to tradition
 * Two wrongs don't make a right
 * Vacuous truth
 * Confirmation bias
 * Framing effect
 * Jumping to conclusions/Hasty generalization
 * Red herring
 * Anecdotal evidence
 * Slippery slope
 * Appeal to ignorance
 * Irrelevant conclusion
 * Equivocation
 * Endowment effect
 * See List of fallacies

Common methods of proof, arguments and razors

 * Proof by contradiction
 * Proof by induction
 * Strong induction
 * Weak induction
 * Pigeonhole principle
 * Deductive reasoning
 * reductio ad absurdum
 * Occam's razor
 * Hanlon's razor
 * Argumentum a fortiori
 * Argument by example
 * Metaphor/analogy
 * Argumentum e contrario / poking a hole in a false analogy
 * Dictum de omni et nullo (subsets)
 * Newton's flaming laser sword
 * Falsifiability
 * Morgan's Canon
 * Duck test
 * Hitchens' razor

==== Common logical truth tables (copied from the article which had 611+ editors) ==== where

 * T = true.
 * F = false.
 * The superscripts 0 to 15 is the number resulting from reading the four truth values as a binary number with F = 0 and T = 1.
 * The Com row indicates whether an operator, op, is commutative - P op Q = Q op P.
 * The Assoc row indicates whether an operator, op, is associative - (P op Q) op R = P op (Q op R).
 * The Adj row shows the operator op2 such that P op Q = Q op2 P
 * The Neg row shows the operator op2 such that P op Q = ¬(P op2 Q)
 * The Dual row shows the dual operation obtained by interchanging T with F, and AND with OR.
 * The L id row shows the operator's left identities if it has any - values I such that I op Q = Q.
 * The R id row shows the operator's right identities if it has any - values I such that P op I = P.

The four combinations of input values for p, q, are read by row from the table above. The output function for each p, q combination, can be read, by row, from the table.

Key:

The following table is oriented by column, rather than by row. There are four columns rather than four rows, to display the four combinations of p, q, as input.

p: T T F F

q: T F T F

There are 16 rows in this key, one row for each binary function of the two binary variables, p, q. For example, in row 2 of this Key, the value of Converse nonimplication ('$$\nleftarrow$$') is solely T, for the column denoted by the unique combination p=F, q=T; while in row 2, the value of that '$$\nleftarrow$$' operation is F for the three remaining columns of p, q. The output row for $$\nleftarrow$$ is thus

2: F F T F

and the 16-row key is

The human mind has a binary bias
We are 2-dimensional minds in a 4-dimensional world. We're really not 3D, we might think we are, but we are pretty much 2D. Once we add that 3rd dimension things start to go awry in the human mind.

Humans have 2 hands, 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 feet, 2 ventricles, 2 tonsils, 2 nostrils, 2 eyes, 2 ears, and 2 brains. We tend to want to model things as a spectrum where black starts here |> and then there's an indeterminate blob of gray, and then white is here <|. In reality, it's 4 quadrants with four different kinds of blurry gray, one for each different kind of combination. WE tend to want to think in terms of easy opposites, good guys and bad guys, up and down, left and right, in and out, etc. And even that 4-quadrant map is a simplification. You know your model is broken when you plot it in a way that isn't cohesive: you're imposing a Cartesian dualism again, but now it's 2^2 instead of your old 2. And try to refine that sooner and pretty soon you realize it's 8, then 16 and 32 and you are in an infinite regress once again. The slippery slope is a fallacy, but it's also an observation of Zeno's paradox. We must remember that some paradoxes are true, but they are oversimplified from the size of the universe one level up.

The 2-party system isn't just a fact of American politics, the system is unconsciously engineered through the emergent behavior of its inhabitants. And while other countries with a parliamentary system think they have it better, which they do in some respects, we still tend toward bipolarization with the coalition governing party and its loyal opposition. Not because a factional political system is inherently binary, but our minds tend to binariness unless we consciously grasp the illusion and work to model it more accurately. Many people are very bad at this. And not to get into sex and gender politics, but there is an inherent binary there, which is also illusory, but a natural product of the system produced emergently by the inhabitants. We tend to want to map one to 1, and one to 0, and there's a gross biological reason as to why. (READ: This is criticizing and not endorsing any negative view you might think this is espousing. Sex and gender are literally false binaries since we have asexual, hermaphrodite, intersex, people at a minimum. That's a biological fact. I am a male and not nonbinary but I try to avoid binary illusions to describe the universe.) Nevermind that you also do have -1, .5, .85, .23, etc. Our minds want to do black & white they know and we can't be surprised, because it's so common and really inevitable. However, it can be consciously corrected for if the error is understood.

There aren't two equal and opposite universes, though. There's only one universe (or multiverse if you wish) and we don't have alternative facts. One of the toughest things for many people to do cognitively is to appreciate the power of paradox. It is sometimes very important to understand that there do exist, in our reality, states where 2 things seemingly conflicting things are true at the same time. It's also hard for us to remember that there are imaginary numbers. This inability to grasp our conditions is a property of Godel's incompleteness theorem (see: Godel, Escher, Bach). We're inside the system so we sometimes forget that the total resolution of our microscale world is suspended when we view it from our perspective. If we could somehow exit the universe and view it from the outside, there would not be a Schrödinger wave equation just cranking away in the corner of the screen like a ticking FPS counter. God does not play dice with the universe. But, he might be playing Dungeons & Dragons. See: double slit experiment

Mop or bit?
I always liked the idea of Wikipedia administrator rights being an "sysop bit," meaning flipping a 0 to a 1 to indicate the boolean true value of a few extra tabs. This is a version of WP:NBD. The difference between a normal user and one with a bit is just 1. It's not a crown of gold or swords or thorns, it's simply enabling a feature toggle. On many online communities, moderators are referred to as such to imply that they are in the administration or in charge of making some decisions as impartial judges (similar, is the word arbitrator). Wikipedia has for a very long time preferred to call the admin role being a janitor, the job of keeping the place clean, wielders of a mop, looking to simply help with housekeeping tasks. However, don't forget the obsession with cleanliness and keeping out the riff raff can be just as dangerous and classist as more authoritarian and hierarchical interpretations of order. Hygiene has been closely associated with the development of eugenics and fascism - that's a very extreme case, but hanging out as a Wikipedia sysop on the drama boards has a way of putting you in touch with the fringe elements of intellectual internet society, such as nationalists, apologists, conspiracists, and all manner of civil POV pushers. It can be quite educational but it can also give you a very skewed and sideways view of the world. Just like if you get your news from Twitter or Facebook, you're viewing reality through a gravitational lens, and the pull pulls around different bodies at different rates. Wikipedia is not biased but because there still exists a reality police, a reality based community that ensures a consensus reality. The role of the admin should involve a short leash for trolls and a long leash for productive discourse (see: Product, process, policy) Intellectual hygiene is important and the lack of it can be corrosive. A wikipedia admin is doing a customer service job - bouncing off of people and rendering judgment to ensure the trains continue to run on time. The role of the policy is keeping the place functional, but it's still a messy place. It is a form of social engineering moreso than a janitorial task. By which I mean being a manager. How to herd the cats? The best way of course is to make a honeypot and let them come to you. The point of it being a "bit" is that anyone can volunteer and learn the skills of management and leadership. It's not about power and it's not about lording it over people, it's about responsibility.

On the fragility of knowledge
It seems to be a given that a lot of people feel like they know many things, some of which they actually know, some of which they only think they know. Of the things that people think they know but do not know, that could fall into things that are categorically false, things that are partially true, things that are mostly untrue, or things that are relatively true except for some amount of strict precision. Wikipedia doesn't care what you know - it only is interested in aggregating the source material. Which means that commonly held and reported, but erroneous knowledge that exists in 2022 and is corrected in 2048, is objectively wrong today, but still must be encoded in Wikipedia even if you know it's wrong. Science is an evolutionary process and Wikipedia is merely one reflection of the broader macrocosm. But a person in 2022 thinks they know several things that turn out to be categorically false, yet still must be considered verifiable in 2022.

Wikipedia is also necessarily an imprecise source. What that means is that when you summarize something, you may reduce its truth value by lacking precision. And that is a process of modelling an abstraction and constructing a narrative, a necessary and important process of distillation and re-cognization, of reforming into a coherent and cohesive and digestible, formatted, data serialization that the human brain can process.

Tribute to little gnomes
Little Wikignomes are extremely important to the project working and should not be understated in importance. It is by the sheer force of many little gnomes that Wikipedia works. It can't be outsourced to AI.

Quotes

 * I don't know anyone who treats Bill Clinton's biography as their holy book, either. I don't know anyone who believes that the existence of France is a myth. I don't know anyone who believes that cars are a foodstuff. That's why I'm not about to start editing those articles with comments like "Believers in the existence of France claim that it is a country located in Western Europe..." and then defend them on the basis of NPOV. Harry R
 * I do not worship logic, any more than I would worship a hammer. But neither do I scoff at logic, or at hammers; they are instruments most fine. Silence
 * I have complete faith in the continued absurdity of whatever’s going on. Jon Stewart
 * He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it. Douglas Adams
 * Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true. Niels Bohr
 * How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress. Bohr
 * Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question. Bohr
 * Life itself is but a compromise between death and life, the struggle continuing throughout our whole existence, until the great destroyer finally triumphs. All legislation, all government, all society is founded upon the principle of mutual concession, politeness, comity, courtesy; upon these everything is based... Let him who elevates himself above humanity, above its weaknesses, its infirmities, its wants, its necessities, say, if he pleases, I will never compromise; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromises. Henry Clay
 * It's easy when you know how To get along without Biff! Bang! Pow! And if I see you're fed up I'll stop and give you a leg up Overpriced unreal estate, surreal estate The highest price they've hit to date Creating new divides and tension This is a tale of two city/situations Mutual appreciation Away from narrow preconception Avoiding conflict hypertension Non-phobic word aerobic This was my domain 'Til someone stole my name You've got to tolerate All those people that you hate I'm not in love with you But I won't hold that against you Super Furry Animals (Listen)
 * if people really, really want to argue the toss, trying to do them a favor and save them time by getting them to not argue the toss won't work Floquenbeam
 * This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. First inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt
 * I certainly didn't intend to cause any dustup in the case of Meghan Markle - just to do the right thing as a bit of fun. I remember when it used to be ok to do the right thing at Wikipedia and have some fun with it.  :-)  Now, as to the Trump situation, I think I'll steer very far from it for now.  Happy to have a long read at some point to see what I think, but.... I generally believe that editors should mostly stay away from situations or topics that are very emotional for them, and I can get quite emotional about Donald Trump.  It would be a lot of work for me personally to write in a neutral way about him, because he upsets me so much.--Jimbo Wales on User talk:Jimbo Wales 20:18, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 *  The expected path is: Somebody does their best (Editing policy) but screws up (Editing policy). A more skilled or better informed editor (maybe you?) salvages what they can (Editing policy). WhatamIdoing

2018
See my 2018 statement here

COI
See my COI declaration here

<span style="font-family:Roboto Mono,Droid Sans Mono,Courier New;">License
la:Usor:Andrus~lawikifr:Utilisateur:Andrevansimple:User:Andrevanja:%E5%88%A9%E7%94%A8%E8%80%85:Andrevan

title: User:Andrevan


text:
Talk:Delegation pattern

Language election
Is Kotlin the most appropriate language for the example? What criteria were used to choose it? I think languages based in C syntax are more common, so programmers are more likely to understand the example. Be it C++, C#, or even ES6. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.57.119.44 (talk) 13:16, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Delegation vs. Adapter Pattern
I've read the GOF book and I don't see why this is considered a pattern. The object adapter pattern in GOF sounds identical to this. Am I missing something? [5 March 2012]

Examples
I think the proliferation of examples is problematic. I think the following issues need to be considered,addressed. MartinSpamer (talk) 11:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC) - All examples must related to the same problem. If someone is trying to understand it using 2 languages, it becomes a challenge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.242.104.67 (talk) 07:55, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Are two Java examples necessary.
 * Are C++ and Objective C examples necessary.
 * All example languages are similar, where are the examples in functional or declarative languages, or even a notational example e.g. UML.
 * Perhaps all programming languages should use a consistent example.
 * Agreed! A couple of examples, one simple and one complex case, in ONE programming language would be enough! Too many examples actually pollute this page! 200.32.121.66 (talk) 15:25, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Removed all the examples except the Java one. The rest where mostly syntactic variants. Qwertyus (talk) 16:13, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

The Ruby example (whilst trying to be extra smart) is not really helpful in explaing the concept of delegation. A::f and B::f should not be the same (virtual) function at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.247.184.225 (talk) 23:44, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Delegation vs. Proxy pattern
The Delegation and Proxy pattern, as well as the Strategy pattern, all look very much alike. Some more information in the differences and similarities between those two patterns would be welcome here. Avernet 18:54 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

They are similar. I would classify Proxy to be a specialisation of the more general delegation pattern. In the Proxy both the Subject and the Proxy conform to the same interface, this isn't the case with delegation. MartinSpamer —Preceding unsigned comment added by MartinSpamer (talk • contribs) 12:31, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

I've heard a lot of people talking about the ‘delegation’ pattern lately. I wondered why? It's not a classic GOF pattern. There might be a few legitimate reasons to use it, but I've yet to hear a compelling reason. Unlike the ‘proxy’ pattern which serves a legitimate purpose, the ‘delegation’ pattern seems like a code bloating anti-pattern to me. Why is it so popular? I just bought Wiley's Patterns in Java Volume 1. Sure enough, it's the first pattern listed. Ah!

You are right to say that it's not a classic GOF pattern. The GOF book considers delegation to be a technique that forms a building block for several patterns (e.g. State, Strategy, Visitor), rather than a pattern in itself. There's a section on Delegation in the introduction of the GOF book. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.133.18.67 (talk) 08:18, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Observations
The criticisms section is making non-submissible arguments.

The criticism is based on the observation that an incorrect implementation may not work correctly. This is a tautology and holds for any code in any language. If the design pattern was complicated to the extent that writing a correct implementation is considered difficult, then that would be a valid criticism.

Also I suggest an 'applicability' section describing an example of where this pattern may be preferable to an alternative such as standard OO inheritance, and perhaps a case where this pattern is less-preferable than an alternative pattern etc..

 I'm not sure what the ettiqute is for making comment comment here, so forigve me if I've done the wrong thing by editing an existing comment to append my own.

I strongly agree with the suggestion that "an 'applicability' section" would be most useful. I would suggest that downside of all patterns is that noobs have a tendancy to throw them in willy-nilly, where it's not appropriate.

Also: I personally don't care if GOF considers Delegation to be a "full blown" pattern, or just a technique... the arguement is mue... Delegation is a very useful and commonly used coding paradigm and IMHO it should be covered herein, regardless of it's position in the pop-chart.

Also: Yes, I agree that there are probably too many examples for an encylopedia entry... though it would be terribly nice to see them ALL taken offline, and linked to. Probably one code example would do (roll a dice to decide which language, most programmers can read most languages anyways)... and yes I do think a UML diagram would be a good idea... UML shows "abstract patterns" cleanly, without any of the common language hang-ups.

Applicabilty
I added an applicabilty section in PHP. Feel free to switch this to something more mainstream such as java or C++. This should clarify the use of this pattern and also clear up any confusion between this and the proxy pattern.

I browsed through the various patterns on wikipedia and found the majority of the text borderline useless and confusing. Additionally there are very few discussions on how a particular pattern might be applied to solve a real world problem.

Please comment on the usefulness/clearness of my applicability example. Should it be decent I'll go ahead and start working on the other patterns as well. --Begby 18:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Suggest merge with Delegation (programming)
The node Delegation (programming) talks at length about the Delegation pattern, yet Delegation pattern already has its own node. Shouldn't they be merged? --Devnevyn 12:47, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

ObjC example
Hmm. I added an example for Objective-C. Since they call it 'delegates', I assumed it was the delegation pattern. However, after actually RTFA I realize that it doesn't seem to be at all the same. Does anyone know what my code is actually a pattern of, so that I can move it to a more appropriate place? Or does it actually fit here? --Devnevyn 13:19, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

This and pimpl
Isn't this just a more general case of Opaque_pointer. If so, maybe some information linking the two should be present. 202.10.86.59 11:42, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Motivation and use
I cannot extract from the article when it's best to use this pattern. Can someone give a motivation or an example in which situation it's good to use this pattern. I know that it in Java e.g. it's used by swing. But I don't know with which aim. Maybe it would be good, to add an motivation section to the article. 80.144.128.176 (talk) 10:25, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I found this, which makes it a little clearer: http://best-practice-software-engineering.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/patterns/delegation.html

80.144.128.176 (talk) 10:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Overlaps with Strategy pattern
Aren't these two basically the same? 138.246.7.155 (talk) 13:14, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually they are not.

The Strategy pattern basically abstracts the implementations from the caller. The caller needs to know of new implementations. The implementations are instantiated, in a strategy pattern.

The Delegation pattern basically points the correct implementation that needs to be used, there by also abstracting the instantiation of the implementation too.

Both these patterns are to be used by considering the "thought" process behind the usage. Code wise its easy to say, I can use one or the other. But if you review the thought process you will realize that the Delegation pattern is to be used when we need the instantiation also taken care of by, lets say, the library. The Strategy pattern basically goes with the thought process of choice provided by the library of just a new protocol/algorithm.Basically when we use multiple libraries that provide new algorithms (and no way of switching between them). So here you have control of "instantiation". Hope I was able to add some value in this discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.242.104.67 (talk) 08:04, 2 June 2010 (UTC)  <!Template:UnsignedIP -->

This is not correct. The GoF Strategy pattern does not describe the mechanism that a client uses to select a particular strategy. Nor does it guarantee that the set of strategies is open-ended. The "Complex" delegation example uses an interface, has multiple implementations of an algorithm, and allows the client to select which algorithm to use. That pretty much fits the GoF definition of Strategy.

It is probably wrong to try to say that Strategy and Delegation have no overlap. Delegation is a technique that underlies many other design patterns. In fact, I would say that it is too primitive to be called a pattern, but that's my opinion, and I'm sure that many others would disagree. Bytecrafter (talk) 13:42, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Inversion of Responsibility?
The first paragraph states "It passes the buck, so to speak (technically, an Inversion of Responsibility)." but there is nothing intrinsic to delegation that means any responsibility is inverted. Delegation is one way in which inversion of control can be implemented but they are not the same thing nor necessarily linked. Can we take this bit out? Kylotan (talk) 18:29, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Seconded
I agree with this. Inversion of control really refers to object composition (how is the object created at run time), while this article is meant to describe the behavior of an object within the context of its responsibilities Helios2k6 (talk) 20:54, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Which DP category does it belongs to?
Galzigler (talk) 21:55, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Content needs restructuring
This article is backwards. It first talks about how specific languages handle the pattern and then offers a definition of the pattern afterward.

Suggested Structure
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Roobyroo (talk • contribs) 16:01, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep first sentence as is.
 * Move all the text of the Definition section to follow the first sentence, removing the Definition section heading in the process.
 * With the Definition section now gone, create two new sections, "Example" and "Language Support"
 * The Example section contains the Kotlin example and the sentence that precedes it.
 * The Language Support section contains the sentence following the Kotlin example and at least the first four sentences of the paragraph that follows it.
 * The final sentence in that paragraph does not seem to belong in the paragraph at all, since it is not about language support. Suggest moving it to follow the definition and immediately precede the "Example" section.

Example is not delegation, but forwarding
The example given for the delegation pattern is not actually delegation, but forwarding. The sender isn't being passed as an argument to the delegate, as the article seems to suggest would be characteristic of the delegation pattern, and the called method has no access to the original sender. I would suggest replacing the existing example with an example in Lua, partially because it's easy to read, and partially because the delegation pattern is common in Lua. rdococ... (talk) 06:57, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

 * I was going to raise a topic on this, but you nailed it. The example is indeed Forwarding (object-oriented programming), and a good one at that. D98dbu (talk) 12:22, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Delegation pattern


text:
Talk:Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Needs more
This is a good beginning but it needs major wikification. Is this according to DSM-IV? In general, we should get rid of the pasive voice and replace it with more informative content. Is this disorder recognized by all psychiatrists? Clinical psychologists? Only some psychologists? Slrubenstein (talk) 18:56, 19 June 2003 (UTC)

Sam:

Thanks, Slrubenstein. Yes, as the article states, the criteria reflect the latest Text Revision of the DSM (DSM IV-TR, 2000). NPD is a personality disorder and an official diagnosis of the DSM. I am the author of a textbook on this disorder ("Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"). Take care! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samvak (talk • contribs) 20:11, 19 June 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Narcissistic Personality Disorder


text:
User talk:Samvak

Good start at the Narcisistic Personality Disorder page. But it needs major wikification. Is this according to DSM-IV? In general, we should get rid of the pasive voice and replace it with more informative content. Is this disorder recognized by all psychiatrists? Clinical psychologists? Only some psychologists? Slrubenstein

Sam:

Thanks, Slrubenstein. Yes, as the article states, the criteria reflect the latest Text Revision of the DSM (DSM IV-TR, 2000). NPD is a personality disorder and an official diagnosis of the DSM. I am the author of a textbook on this disorder ("Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"). Take care!

Hello, sorry about removing your Pathological narcissism entry, I thought it was some random user dumping copyrighted text from the web. Anyway, welcome to Wikipedia! If you ever need editing help visit How does one edit a page or how to format them visit our manual of style. Experiment at Sandbox. If you need pointers on how we title pages visit Naming conventions and if you have any other questions about the project then check out Help or add a question to the Village pump. Regards. -- Notheruser 19:15 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Sam:

No sweat! Thank you for the pointers. Take care!

ack and reply
Hi Sam, thanks for your kind works on my Talk page re. the article on Narcissism. BTW, I left you a question on the Talk page of that article a few weeks ago, if you have a moment. Also, in case you didn't know, if you type four twiddles (~), at the end of your messages in the Talk pages, the system automatically inserts your username, and date and time. Bye for now! -- Viajero 11:26, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Hi Sam. I found you because someone had added your page on Abuse to the Cleanup page, which is an indication that it needs work. While your page contains a lot of useful information, it's not really written in an encyclopedic style. It looks like a personal essay, with factual information mixed with personal opinions and advice.

Can I suggest that you visit it again, and have a look at some other articles to see what the preferred style is? Try reading Manual of Style for more information.

Also because Wikipedia is about shared authorship, we never sign contributions.

Thanks for your contributions, and keep them coming. DJ Clayworth 15:52, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Narcissism article
Dear Sam, thanks for the offer of help. What I think the narcissism article needs is a solid background on the psychoanalytical theory of narcissism. I have an extremely rudimentary knowledge of this and think that it should have a discussion of the first years of life with primary and secondary narcissism explained in a way that an ordinary encyclopedia reader can understand. This should then flow on to how this affects the teenager and adult. Some of this later stuff is in the article.

There are still some areas left in the narcissistic PD article that really belong in the narcissism article, e.g.

 * Narcissists are either Cerebral (derive their narcissistic supply from their intelligence or academic achievements) — or Somatic (derive their narcissistic supply from their physique, exercise, physical or sexual prowess and "conquests").

 * Narcissists are either "Classic" (meet five of the nine diagnostic criteria included in the DSM) or they are "Compensatory" (their narcissism compensates for deepset feelings of inferiority and lack of self-worth).

 * Some narcissists are Covert or Inverted Narcissists - as codependents they derive their narcissistic supply from their relationships with classic narcissists.

In general I believe the PD article should follow a more DSM format and not refer to "narcissists" but to "individuals with narcissistic PD" or more colloquially "people with ...". There is a trend away from labelling a person AS a disorder. This could be followed in the narcissism article as "individuals with narcissistic traits".

If you have the time to flesh out the narcissism article in any way we would all be grateful for your efforts. There is no reason why this couldn't be a 30 KB major article.

I hope to send you an email using your website to arrange to get a copy of your book. --CloudSurfer 06:55, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Dear CloudSurfer, Beefed up the narcissism article as per your excellent suggestion. But, my editing skills are below par, to use an understatement. Can you guys help me edit the articles both cosmetically (subtitles, internal links) and substantially (irrelevant sections)?

The paras you quote ("Some narcissists are Covert" etc.) should remain in the narcissistic personality disorder article because they describe various forms of the disorder (cerebral vs. somatic, classic, compensatory, inverted, etc.). These variants are NOT part of healthy narcissism.

Awaiting your communication and help with gratitude. Samvak

 * I see what you are saying about the those paragraphs but surely they are present in traits at lower levels before they reach the level of a PD. If they stay in the PD article then I would propose we reword the "Narcissists ..." to "Narcissistic defences ..." or something that takes the label away from the person.

 * I have just opened the narcissism article to find it has been expanded to a major degree. WOW.  I have not read it yet. Two things I immediately noticed are that the headings are not yet Wiki, and I will do that as part of a proofread, and it has many references but these are not at the bottom in the reference section. This latter issue needs your tender loving care Sam as you have the references. --CloudSurfer 19:40, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * OK! I have read the article and must congratulate you on synthesising an extremely complex field. I have put in headings to try to structure it so that a reader is usually likely to have a heading on their screen as they read the text. I have made some minor text changes which you can see by pressing the "history" tab and comparing your last version with my last version. What I am not sure about just now is whether the text is accessible to someone who does not have a grounding in the theories. At this stage I think I will let it alone for a while and come back to it. In the meantime there may be more comments. I have added your book under further reading. I would have liked to have put a link to it but unfortunately your pages would be seen as too commercial and thus the link would be liable to be deleted. Still anyone will find them with an internet search for the book title. --CloudSurfer 22:42, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi Sam and CloudSurfer, Good work on the Narcissism article! It has become very comprehensive. My compliments. Sietse 08:46, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hi, CloudSurfer, Sietse Snel, I wish I could wikify like you! Wondeful job, CloudSurfer!!! As per your comment, I substantially extended the bibliography at the end of narcissism. Feel free to edit to your heart's content. Next I will edit the narcissistic personality disorder article to remove the stigmatizing labels. Way to go, guys! PS: Would you like to collaborate on the personality disorders articles? I have authored the Open Site definitions (see external link in personality disorder ) Samvak

 * Thanks for the bibliography. I will go through some time and change those references in the text to numbers like this1 and then move each reference into a section called References. Thanks Sam for your intended edit to the narcissistic PD article. Please feel free to edit any of the PD articles. Sam, I have sent you an email from my Samoan work address requesting the digital copy of the book. By the way, does anyone have a nice, public domain picture of Narcissisus sitting by the water? --CloudSurfer 04:55, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Book on its way (Sietse Snel, the offer still stands). Sent you two images which I believe (but cannot prove) are public domain. Next, will see what I can contribute to the personality disorder entry. Let's work closely together, if it fits you, guys! Samvak

 * Sam, thanks for the book and images. I am very pleased to work with you on the PD area. After you have done something make a note of it at the WikiProject Psychopathology/Review page.  I am following that and it allows the entire project to know of it. You can separate each entry with the line you see at the extreme right of the buttons on the top of the edit window. Also, please make any changes AFTER you have logged in so that we know who it is, not some arbitrary IP address. Sign and date your entry with the second from the right button. --CloudSurfer 17:55, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Plagiarizing yourself? I wanted to let you know people like me are out there noticing copywriting errors. I am writing a paper on this narcissism, and have your article from Mentalhelp.net and noticed it was some of the same writing in this encyclopedia. I thought there were rules on citing your own work as well though.

Ronningstam / Roningstam
What is the correct spelling? The internet is evenly divided on this but seems to be more authoratative for the "nn" version. --CloudSurfer 21:07, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Right you are! Correct name is RoNNingstam. RoNingstam is a typo!Samvak

Personality disorder article
Hey, I should thank you instead of the other way around! In my opinion, your contribution about criticism of personality disorders makes very good points. Keep up the good work! Sietse 19:43, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Dear Sam, I have goodnaturedly added a contrary "defence of DSM" to the controversy. See what you think. The ball is now in your court. [Grin] By the way, to sign your name, use the second from the right button in the edit windows. This will insert "--~" [minus the quotes] which will be interpreted as two dashes and then your user name and time/date when you save the edit. If you only used "" then you would just get your user name without a timestamp. --CloudSurfer 20:16, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Narcissism
My apologies for removing your text. --Tothebarricades 19:25, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

And another apology. Sorry about the sock puppet thing a while back. I was a bit confused and I made a mistake. Hope you have a Merry Christmas! --DanielCD 15:14, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry case
You have been accused of sockpuppetry. Please refer to Suspected sock puppets/Samvak for evidence. Please make sure you make yourself familliar with notes for the suspect before editing the evidence page. Zeraeph 18:57, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry case
You have been accused of sockpuppetry. Please refer to Suspected sock puppets/Samvak(2nd) for evidence. Please make sure you make yourself familliar with notes for the suspect before editing the evidence page. Zeraeph 18:57, 10 June 2006 (UTC)--Zeraeph 12:40, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppets
Iola  k  ana |(talk) 15:50, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry case
You have been accused of sockpuppetry. Please refer to Suspected sock puppets/Samvak (3rd) for evidence. Please make sure you make yourself familliar with notes for the suspect before editing the evidence page.

Sockpuppetry

 * For continuing to violate your block using IP addresses I am resetting your block. Iola k ana |T  18:06, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry case
You have been accused of sockpuppetry. Please refer to Suspected sock puppets/Samvak (4th) for evidence. Please make sure you make yourself familiar with notes for the suspect before editing the evidence page. Zeraeph 11:16, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Dr. Sam Vaknin
To whom it may concern,

I have recently been undertaking a significant amount of research and feel this is as good a place to warn anyone. The individual referring to himself as Dr. Sam Vaknin has no educational qualifications of any merit or legitimacy, and was incarcerated for a period in the mid 90s, further casting doubt over his reputation. A confirmed sufferer of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, this individual is an avid self promoter and has disseminated vast amounts of his publications across the internet. When undertaking research on economics, finance, monetary unions (especially the history thereof), Macedonia, psychology and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, please ensure this individual is not the author of the said work, as factual errors or inaccuracies may be prevalent throughout the work and, despite the plausability of his publications, his reputation casts an unquestionable shadow of doubt over his professional undertakings. I have wasted my time on this individual, and intend only to spare you the same.

Sincerely,

V —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.72.110.11 (talk) 09:44, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

title: User talk:Samvak


text:
Rottweil (district)

Rottweil is a Landkreis (district) in the middle of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is part of the Schwarzwald-Baar-Heuberg region in the Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald regional district. Neighboring districts are (from north clockwise) Freudenstadt, Zollernalbkreis, Tuttlingen, Schwarzwald-Baar and Ortenaukreis.

History
The district dates back to the Oberamt Rottweil, which was created in 1806/08 when the previously free imperial city Rottweil became part of Württemberg. In 1934 it was renamed to Landkreis (district). 1938 the two neighboring districts Sulz and Oberndorf were dissolved, and most of the district Oberndorf and a small part of Sulz was added to the district Rottweil. During World War II, a series of Nazi concentration camps, collectively known as KZ Schörzingen-Rottweil-Zepfenhan, were located in the area. In 1973 in another communal reform several municipalities from the districts Horb, Wolfach, Hechingen and Villingendorf were added.

Geography
The district covers part of the mountains of the Black Forest and the Swabian Alb. The Neckar River bisects the district from south to north as it flows towards the Rhine River.

Economy
Today, the economy of Rottweil is predominantly medium-sized. The town of Rottweil, the oldest town in Baden-Württemberg, used to be a flourishing imperial city during the Middle Ages.

The annual average unemployment rate in Rottweil was 3.4 Percent in 2019.

Coat of arms
The imperial eagle in the coat of arms derives from the coat of arms of the free imperial city Rottweil. Below the eagle is a deer antler, the symbol of Württemberg, as part of the district belonged to the kingdom Württemberg well before Rottweil itself became part of it. The shield on the breast of the eagle show the colors of Austria, symbolizing the area around the city of Oberndorf which was acquired by Austria in 1381.

title: Rottweil (district)


text:
Strange star

A strange star, also called a strange quark star, is a hypothetical compact astronomical object, a quark star made of strange quark matter.

Strange stars might exist without regard to the Bodmer–Witten assumption of stability at near-zero temperatures and pressures, as strange quark matter might form and remain stable at the core of neutron stars, in the same way as ordinary quark matter could. Such strange stars will naturally have a crust layer of neutron matter. The depth of the crust layer will depend on the physical conditions and circumstances of the entire star and on the properties of strange quark matter in general. Stars partially made up of quark matter (including strange quark matter) are also referred to as hybrid stars.

The collapse of the crust layer of strange stars is one of the proposed causes of fast radio bursts.

Theoretical description
Neutron stars are formed when the collapse of a star occurs with such intense force that gravity forces subatomic particles such as protons and electrons to merge into neutrally charged neutron particles, releasing a shower of neutrinos. If the resultant neutral core is able to maintain form and not collapse into a black hole, the result is an incredibly dense celestial body composed entirely of neutral uncharged particles.

Protons and neutrons are composed of three quarks: a proton by two up quarks and one down quark, a neutron by two down quarks and one up quark. It is hypothesized that within neutron stars, the conditions are so extreme that a process known as deconfinement occurs: where subatomic particles dissolve and leave their constituent quarks behind as free particles. The temperature and pressure would then force these quarks to be squeezed together to such an extent that they would form a hypothetical phase of matter known as quark matter. If this occurs, the neutron star becomes a "quark star". If the pressure is great enough, the quarks could be affected even further and transform into strange quarks, which would then interact with the other "non-strange" quarks to form strange matter. If this occurs, the quark star would then become a strange star.

Characteristics
Early work on strange quark matter suggested that it would be a homogeneous liquid, but other models propose a heterogeneous alternative with positively charged "strange quark nuggets" embedded in a negatively charged electron gas. This structure decreases the stars' external electric field and density variation from previous theoretical expectations, with the result that such stars to appear nearly indistinguishable from ordinary neutron stars.

Other theoretical work contends that:"A sharp interface between quark matter and the vacuum would have very different properties from the surface of a neutron star." Addressing key parameters like surface tension and electrical forces that were neglected in the original study, the results show that as long as the surface tension is below a low critical value, the large strangelets are indeed unstable to fragmentation and strange stars naturally come with complex strangelet crusts, analogous to those of neutron stars.

Crust collapse
For a strange star's crust to collapse, it must accrete matter from its environment in some form.

The release of even small amounts of its matter causes a cascading effect on the star's crust. This is thought to result in a massive release of magnetic energy as well as electron and positron pairs in the initial phases of the collapsing stage. This release of high energy particles and magnetic energy in such a short period of time causes the newly released electron/positron pairs to be directed towards the poles of the strange star due to the increased magnetic energy created by the initial secretion of the strange star's matter. Once these electron / positron pairs are directed to the star's poles, they are then ejected at relativistic velocities, which is proposed to be one of the causes of fast radio bursts

Primordial strange stars
Theoretical investigations have revealed that quark stars might not only be produced from neutron stars and powerful supernovae, they could also be created in the early cosmic phase separations following the Big Bang.

If these primordial quark stars can transform into strange quark matter before the external temperature and pressure conditions of the early universe renders them unstable, they might become stable, if the Bodmer–Witten assumption holds true. Such primordial strange stars could survive to this day.

Observability
Strange dwarfs, unlike neutron stars with strange cores, are postulated to be different from white dwarfs. A database of white dwarfs has been analyzed. Knowledge of the mass and surface gravity of a star allows calculation of its radius. A team that compared 40,000 white dwarfs to the mass-radius relation for white dwarfs discovered that most of them followed that relation. Eight exceptions were much smaller in size and matched predictions for a strange dwarf.

title: Strange star