User talk:Sam Weller

Collective nouns/pronouns

Thank you very much for your language-related corrections in the article "Prediction of the United States collapse in 2010"! But I can't understand how the "U.S." (which is plural, United States) can be singular?! Please explain me. Thanks! --Лъчезар (talk) 19:40, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for an interesting article. There's a good explanation about collective noun usage here:[1] Note that in US English the USA is always singular! In Brit English the USA can be singular or plural - depending on the context, or which aspect you want to emphasize. In the section of your article that I edited, the US is being spoken of as a (currently!) single entity. To show I'm not making it up, see this BBC article on US climate policy: [2]. Hope this helps. Sam Weller (talk) 20:05, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your explanation! I started learning English only at the age of 22. The British/American differences are not very clear to me. Here, only British English is taught and even my teacher was surprised to find the huge difference in the pronunciation of, for example, "schedule", in British and American English. Anyway, the BBC page you quote gives me a 404 (not found) error. The Wikipedia page you quote is exactly what I used as a reference for this. There is an example there "The Clash are a well-known band" in British English. In the case with the U.S., this is just an abbreviation of "United States" and it's strange that it's not plural. (If we say "United States" instead of "U.S", at least then it must be plural?!) If it was "USA" instead of "U.S." then perhaps singular as you say, I don't know. In Bulgaria we always use plural too, albeit this is irrelevant, of course. In any case, there are other places in the "Prediction..." article that use the U.S. as plural and I think that all occurrences should be made equal. If you would like, you could replace all of them with the singular form. Thank you very much! --Лъчезар (talk) 10:22, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The United States is a country in North America, the European Union is a group of nations, etc. Bands are interesting, as they have a small number of members who can be thought of individually. But a large group of musicians, like a symphony orchestra, is usually singular: [3] Sorry the BBC climate link didn't work - it should now.[4] It mentions USA and US in the singular. Sam Weller (talk) 10:44, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it works now, thanks. I found an article devoted to this problem here and it says that U.S. can be singular or plural. It contains an example for plural usage: "The United States are a major power in the World". The "Prediction..." article has a passage which says "back in 1998 when the U.S. were at the peak of their might". Is the plural there correct? As to bands, it's exactly the same in Bulgarian - we use singular for symphonic orchestras and plural for rock bands. (Why not, if the latter dissolute so often? :) --Лъчезар (talk) 16:20, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your BBC link is right, and concludes, "normally if you’re talking about the country, use the singular verb." The plural just sounds odd to me in this article, and that's what made me want to change it, but it's no big deal. Sam Weller (talk) 17:25, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. So "back in 1998 when the U.S. were at their might" doesn't sound odd? That's one of the advantages of the native language speaker - to hear "oddity" where the non-native speaker won't :) --Лъчезар (talk) 11:19, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, I said it does sound odd. Especially as people usually say acronyms such as US, UN, EU as letters, not as the words they represent. "The YouEss were" sounds very odd, to me. Sam Weller (talk) 11:33, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I finally understood and fixed it! Thanks! :) --Лъчезар (talk) 08:00, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Off-topic from anything

Hi Sam. I notice that you use (or at least link to on the ANI page) the secure version of Wikipedia. Do you mind if I ask what the reason is behind this? I didn't even know there was one till the other day when someone (maybe you again, not sure) posted a secured link. Thanks! --RobinHood70 (talk) 21:48, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I noticed one day when I logged in that it said 'Have you considered logging in on the secure server?' Well, I did. Can't say I noticed any security problems before, but it seems sensible. But I don't always remember, of course. And it sometimes creates problems and asks you to log in again when you open multiple pages in the browser. Sam Weller (talk) 08:13, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mail

Hi, many thanks for your mail. I am glad you dropped me a line about it (my intellectually challenged mail program filed it as spam, so it didn't appear in my in-box). Just having a read-through now. Best wishes, JN 466 16:47, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rushbrook Williams

Hi Sam, I was just discussing the Rushbrook Williams book with another editor on my talk page: User_talk:Jayen466#sirdar_ikbal_ali_shah. Would you care to weigh in? In particular, do you recall who at the time accused Shah of organising his own symposium in honour of himself?

One thing that struck me was that what may be the biggest name in the book, James Kritzeck, clearly did not write his contribution for this symposium; rather, it reads like a book review previously published elsewhere and reprinted. --JN 466 11:46, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

CFS removal of maintenance templates

It might not have been your intention, but your recent edit removed maintenance templates from Wikipedia. When removing maintenance templates, please be sure to either resolve the problem that the template refers to, or give a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. If this was a mistake, don't worry, as your removal of this template has been reverted. I recognize your intent may have been to dispute the content removal, but maintenance tags shouldn't also be removed. Please give a careful read to WP:MEDRS to understand the difference and correct use of primary vs. secondary sources; that a primary study is published in a science journal is irrelevant; it's still a primary study until it has been covered in a secondary review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:19, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I removed a template that appears to be unrelated to WP:MEDRS. More here: [5] Sam Weller (talk) 14:50, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not our fault that maintenance templates must cover many kinds of articles; it's still the correct template, and the only one we have for overreliance on primary sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:06, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

General statement at XMRV

Hi, I wrote a little warning for everyone at XMRV. I think going back to the strict sourcing requirements is the only resolution that will bring some peace to the article. Cheers! Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 15:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

XMRV chit-chat

I have spent quite a lot of time going through the two papers and following up the free access references and abstracts of the closed ones. I do think that JM has a point. I see three main points of concern with the Imperial study:

The patient cohort was drawn from the routine attendees at the KCH clinic in London SE5 (2 x 1hr+ commute by public transport for most people); who had previously participated in CFS/CBT studies; who had been previously screened to remove those with biological symptoms such as EBV. This clinic is also boycotted by most patient groups representing UK's chronic CFS sufferers. So this is one hell of a selection bias on the population group. The group were also assessed on an old psychological centred assessment. (You don't even need the classic delayed prolonged fatigue after exercise that most of us suffer from.)
The tests were based on EDTA-stabilised whole blood rather than PBMCs taken from tissue samples. This is pretty surprising as preparation of the DNA extract is as important as the PCR amplification procedure. The article also cited a procedure which is about "DNA from buccal swabs" and as far as I can see all of the 13 PUBMED articles citing this use buccal swab based assays. (This paper isn't in PUBMED yet).
The PCR amplification processes are also different, and based on the couple of papers on this that I've read, the type I / type II characteristics of such amplification is very sensitive to these procedure parameters.

This whole thing of this paper being driven through the review process in three days prior to publication is deeply suspicious. I just wonder who the independent reviewers were. It reminds me of the games that CDC got up to in '91 to discredit Elaine De Freitas' earlier paper on a possible retrovirus in CFS patients. This time though, I don't think that it really matters as so many other groups have papers in the pipeline.

I think that I am going to take a break from working on Wikipedia for a bit. This whole thing of the POV attack on WIP and the Whittemore's has got to me and made me question how well this whole Wikipedia consensus approach actually works. If you pick a subject that only you want to write on then you can get away with blue murder. I find myself spending too many hours defending the integrity of an article that I have no interest in, simply because no one else is. Time to go off an do a bit of php development :-) -- TerryE (talk) 15:45, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Terry, It's mighty odd that the IC team charged straight in without comparing their PCR technique with WPI. They didn't do cultures either. Funny, I decided to take a break in the New Year, and Ofqual telling kids to avoid WP is all the reason I need! Enjoy your break. Sam Weller (talk) 17:51, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Whittemore Peterson Institute

We seem to be sliding into an edit war on this one. KCOC is very singular minded, e.g hist latest revert was a reference for funding for the WPI "to serve patients with Neuro-immune diseases such as ME/CFS, atypical MS, Fibromyalgia, Gulf War Illness and Autism, ..." from Congresswoman Berkley's official state website was not an RS since not being a medical expert this is of "secondary relevance" to other RS (e.g the Guardian Newspaper). If I revert I will trigger 3RR. You might want to track this. -- TerryE (talk) 21:47, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What's the hurry? Best wait till they publish their findings in autism etc. The Guardian is not neutral in this, btw. Sam Weller (talk) 23:43, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure that the underlying issue will change. See the discussion Talk:Whittemore Peterson Institute#Inaccuracy in lead. I don't want to comment on this page because of User talk:TerryE#Canvassing. -- TerryE (talk) 01:20, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Request for discussion on triggering Edit War Process. Feel free to contribute to this discussion if you wish. I apologise for contacting all contributors, but I have been asked to be impartial by another editor working on this page. -- TerryE (talk) 01:09, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent)Sam, I was interested in your views on Talk:Whittemore Peterson Institute#Main points from WPI paper in the XMRV/CFS controversy section. We've had so much posting on this talk page that this point has been "flushed" by other posts. No doubt if you do have a view, then others will notice and chip in.

As I said in my response to K's Coatrack section, Whilst [6] seems to be a pretty good technical summary IMHO, the author is not defined and we therefore don't know that this passes a WP:RS test for medical claims, and therefore the advice on which this is based. I would prefer Mikowits critique on the sensitivity of this type of test, rather than the non-expert for this article.

No need to answer here. The WPI talk page is best for this. -- TerryE (talk) 17:56, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You attack me six months later??

Please do not attack other editors. If you continue, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. RetroS1mone talk 14:24, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You forgot to link where the alleged "attack" took place, maybe because I'm not in the habit of "attacking" anyone. Sam Weller (talk) 14:43, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

AN/I

Sam Weller,

I've been taking abuse from you for several months. Your accusations of sockpuppetry, recruiting and COI are over-the-top. I've posted to AN/I. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 23:22, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Keepcalmandcarryon. Ward20 (talk) 03:26, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ward, thanks for letting me know. Sam Weller (talk) 09:11, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sam, the link is WP:AN/I#Sockpuppetry, COI and recruiting allegations by User:Sam Weller, but I do think that this is a trivial waste of administrator time. We've now got to about 10K words trying to defend why (in an article about an institute) it is inappropriate to mention to mention that the Technical director who happened to be a member and elected officer of yacht club and occasionally served behind the club bar happened to spark the interest of someone at the bar who then introduced her to AW (despite the fact that we have other evidence that it was actually an ex-colleague.) Apparently this is all part of a cover-up conspiracy on the part of a CFS patient cabal (rather than preventing irrelevant content) being inserted into an article. -- TerryE (talk) 12:59, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Terry, replied at your talk. Sam Weller (talk) 13:28, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I know, I've seen Ward's investigation request -- I was really referring to K's AN/I to make sure that you were aware of it.

To my mind there are now two quite separate questions (i) Is she the same poster as RetroS1mone? (ii) whether or not this was the case, is her conduct fair and reasonable? I don't know if she is the same as RetroS1mone. I haven't enough personal experience of RetroS1mone to comment on this.

What I do find very interesting is that the Keepcalmandcarryon and RetroS1mone accounts were created within hours of each other and within days they were both being used to mount a coordinated set of posts on a common agenda. Both were quoting (therefore had an in depth knowledge of) all sorts of Wikipedia policies and guidelines. I've had an active WP account for 2½ years and I've only started to dig into these in the last month or so in order to be able to respond to K's claims. Both (whether the same person or not) had therefore gained an extensive experience of working in Wikipedia before these accounts were created. (There is no way you can get to Adept Wikipedian in 4 days from a standing start.) We don't know under what identities they gained this experience, but it wasn't their (or her) current ones. -- TerryE (talk) 16:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would be inclined to raise these issues at the SPI - including the lightning-fast familiarity with P&G. In contrast, when I saw the "AN/I" here, I had to search for a definition. Sam Weller (talk) 18:13, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sam, I am trying to decide where to focus my attentions on this whole conduct issue: the puppet analysis or a user conduct RfC. I would appreciate your perspective either by reply here or via wiki E-mail -- TerryE (talk) 14:36, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A positive sock result only blocks the dormant account, right? Sam Weller (talk) 10:07, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open!

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