Dr. McDougall's Wikipedia Entry needs editing/help

[funcrunch]

Listen to BlueHeron. This is how Wikipedia works. Claims need to be stated from a neutral point of view and backed up by reliable sources. If you don't feel the statement added is from a reliable source then that should be stated in the edit summaries, and if your edit is reverted then discussion should happen on the talk page for the article before further editing. Reverting an edit without explanation or reverting multiple times gets people banned from editing and sometimes gets articles protected from anonymous editing for a time, which is what has happened today.

(I came here because the page is on my watchlist and after seeing a flurry of edits, I suspected that someone had canvassed for outside help, which is also against Wikipedia policy.)

[healthyvegan]

BlueHeron & Funcrunch, totally understand your point. I was totally shocked when I saw that the reference to The McDougall Plan was edited by a meat eating UK software developer battling cancer who also did the same edit to Pritikin. Drown Out, was not the right choice of words. I should say that we need to flesh out the Wiki entry to be more representative of his life's work and accomplishments and add cited entries that convey the fact that the McDougall Diet is in fact not a fad, but how humans have evolved to eat. I added in the information about the successful passing of the Senate Bill Dr. McDougall Authored here in California on continuing nutritional education. Wikipedia, like Reddit are just bizarre internet "open communities" with the reality that they are really controlled by power editors & moderators who can edit history & news to their whims. I'm totally new to editing wikipedia and an learning the hard way how the manipulators do their evil deeds.

[colonyofcells]

Vegan diets have been around since the 1940s so I would assume vegan diets are not fad diets. High fat diets have also been around for many decades and have already become a part of american culture, unfortunately. Maybe take a break from wikipedia for a while and just patiently wait for some of the meat eaters to die from chronic diseases.

[healthyvegan]

really good point, at what point is something a fad diet, http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/fad- ... ning-signs

I think in a few decades we'll look back at everything people are eating today as a fad diet, just not a fad weight loss diet, but some bizarre diet experiment of feeding herbivores a carnivores diet.

[BlueHeron]

healthyvegan, the diet of the person doing the editing is totally irrelevant. If the diet of the individual were relevant, then you should be barred from editing the article because you're a follower of McDougall. You are as biased as he is if not more so - just in the other direction. Again, imagine this going the other way - someone writing about a McDougall follower making edits to the article. You would be even more open to criticism than this man is.

Also - "evil deeds"? Can you even hear your own inflammatory language?

Complete fairness is impossible, but Wikipedia does make an effort. If you go to the Talk page of the McDougall article, you'll see discussions about previous edits, including concerns about the previous versions of the article reading like an ad for Dr. McDougall (and a note from funcrunch saying that citations are needed to show other doctors don't share Dr. McDougall's views - a request that was fulfilled).

Wikipedia is also a collaborative project. If you have disagreements, you need to go to the Talk page rather than just going back and changing things over and over.

[Thrasymachus]

Can you imagine if he posted on his blog people on Dr. McDougall's site say they want to drown him out?

That would be a small net win as not even close to 1% of the population is vegan, let alone restricting to the type of health oriented vegan starch based, low-fat foods advocated by McDougall. Anything that is this niche needs any type of publicity. The worse thing for something so niche is to be ignored.

The explanations of the politicking games of Wikipedia are a good reason to avoid editing or consulting wikipedia except out of pure apathy. Here is an excerpt from a post I wrote analyzing the politicking games of Reddit and contextualized by invoking the low-intellectual threshold of society:

... Participating I realize Reddit is a very low quality venue and I think the voting system, where you can vote up or down comments, is the culprit. How many people in life do you know who are seriously informed about anything they didn't have to learn because of work or career related jockeying(which involves the possibility of more money, otherwise they wouldn't care). In a world where JK Rowlings who wrote a book targeted for children also became the most popular adult writer with Harry Potter, getting voted up or down is not a good indication if you are serious or worthwhile commenter. And when Rowlings tried to write an adult book, alot of the world found out she really isn't that great of a writer... That is the low intellectual threshold of Anglosphere and other countries where consumerism is the most dominant ideology. People want to be numb and uninformed, they don't want to listen to heady non-fiction podcasts, read non-fiction books or examine anything that is not a cultural myth, yet they want desperately to have opinions or share their view on so many things without taking the time to make it worthwhile by cultivating themselves intellectually. So really the voting system generally allows the lowest quality, most cliched and nonthreatening views to rise to the top, given the low intellectual level of a society more interested in escapism than what matters in life.

...

I don't think playing adapt down games is generally a good way to advocate anything pro-active or progressive. I personally don't have the energy or personality for the kind of politicking adapt-down venues like Wikipedia on the internet.

[healthyvegan]

BlueHeron, will check out what a talk page is on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... ng_persons I've been learning about the biographies of living persons rules. Thanks for the information.

I don't feel qualified to edit the wikipedia article. I would hope Dr. McDougall could do it himself. Despite wiki being what it is its important that there not be any Red Herrings in the article that aren't the original source so we can learn how the opinions came about. I'd like to find the wiki policy on that because the Editor posted a diagram in a text book that was credited to another text book. I would like the original text book source to study.

I am biased, I don't want anyone suffering from disease that I help get on the McDougall program to open up the Wiki and see that its a fad diet. Completely damaging and untrue since its not a fad diet, its the diet that humans are supposed to eat, that is not an opinion, its scientific fact, we can start with the difference between a carnivore, omnivore, insectivore or herbivore's digestive systems and move up the damage from feeding any animal their wrong diet. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1312295/

[Thrasymachus]

I don't feel qualified to edit the wikipedia article. I would hope Dr. McDougall could do it himself.

That would be an immense waste of talent. Wikipedia has all sorts of arcane rules and procedures. McDougall stooping down to learn all their internal political games, cirlcejerks and procedures is too much of a waste. Being successful at Wikipedia editing has more to do with having too much time, mainstream support and a knack for internet political games than having a superior argument or better supported source material.

[scooterpie]

Wish I was all that worried about McD's Wikipedia page. Coming back to the board after some weeks away really shows how much idiocracy abounds on "The Lounge." Time to go away again, she said:-)

I appreciate your comments vgpedlr:-)

Some people like to pass a lot of gas--perhaps the page will lead them to the McD diet so they can toot to their hearts content--haha!

[funcrunch]

Wikipedia is nothing like reddit, and it isn't all about "arcane rules" and "internet political games", Thrasymachus. It is an extremely valuable source of information with thousands of contributing editors and a robust system for conflict management. Of course it is not perfectly neutral and devoid of errors, but neither are peer-reviewed printed journals.

As the subject of the article, it would be inappropriate for Dr. McDougall to edit it himself. healthyvegan, as you are brand-new to Wikipedia editing, respectfully, please learn more about this resource before trashing it without understanding anything about it.

[Thrasymachus]

Oh, yes, Wikipedia is all about political games and politicking and who you know or who you are within the power structure of Wikipedia. There is no such thing as a "neutral point of view" and never will be. Only idiot, technocrat wannabe, techno-utopian, Ayn-Rand fans, like those behind Wikipedia can come up with such pseudo-populist nonsense. The more time you spend learning the shifting and invented rules of Wikipedia, and playing their power games, the less qualified you are to inform anyone on anything. It has no mechanism to recognize or appreciate true expertise, instead preferring those who spend the most time politicking on Wikipedia.

[funcrunch]

instead preferring those who spend the most time politicking on Wikipedia.

Yes, clearly a social media optimization site written by a "rock guitarist who was injured in a PC gaming accident and am now addicted to social media" delivers expert information about Wikipedia's accuracy.

[Thrasymachus]

So what mechanism does Wikipedia have for recognizing true expertise, instead of who is who in terms of their internal editing politics? If Dr. McDougall or anyone with deep expertise, approached Wikipedia would they end up anything other than frustrated by the experience of stepping into their politicking, petty world? The most successful editors just have been there longer and know how to play the game of Wikipedia, and are not the most knowledgeable. You can claim neutral point of view(an impossible and deeply political construct) against any more knowledgeable editor, and if you have more experience you can use that an excuse to edit in almost anything, if you are a good Wikipedia cos-player.

[AlwaysAgnes]

I don't have a problem with the Wikipedia entry.

The McDougall Program also makes an appearance in Encyclopedia of Diet Fads: Understanding Science and Society, second edition.
http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Diet ... 1610697606

I guess this book just came out November, 2014.

You can read the entire "McDougall Program" entry at google books: https://books.google.com/books?id=4jq2B ... et&f=false


I hope those links work. That last one is a foot long.

[baardmk]

I don't understand a lot of you guys. You think it's fair that the only "evaluative statement", and at the very last of the article, deems your diet boring and a fad diet? Don't you think it could be better sourced, if anything, or that it should be less inflammatory towards people following McDougall's philosophy?

The phrases food faddism and fad diet originally referred to idiosyncratic diets and eating patterns that promote short-term weight loss, usually with no concern for long-term weight maintenance, and enjoy temporary popularity.