Talk:Waldorf education/Archive 2

message: This article has recently been of a much higher quality than in the preceding months. I think it would be a shame if we were to lose that. Waldorf Education has a lot going for it, and should be presented in a positive and informed light.
The reason that this article used to be terrible, was that a minority of Waldorf advocates waded in and removed and/or defamed all contributions that were anything other than extremely pro-waldorf POV.
Waldorf education looks better when criticims are acknowledged and discussed. If this page returns to being a religious battleground, then Waldorf educators will simply be dissmissed by the outside world as nutters.
I urge everybody to concentrate on the positive, acknowledge/discuss the negative, and be objective. Shown in an unbiased light, Waldorf Education sells itself--Fergie 11:11, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lets be careful here 

message: As it says, if you want articles in simple English, simple to read, you can create an article at the Simple English Wikipedia at precisely this spot.
If you need to be informed about Wikipedias style please read the Manual of Style and the Style and How-to Directory. Reading the entry on encyclopedia will perhaps also help out.
I know from my own experience (I attended Waldorf school) that anthroposophy and also Waldorf Education contains an element of esotericism, which means that complex and advanced subjects regarding the philopsophy are only be introduced to those who has already reached a certain level of education. However the Wikipedia in not a place for esotericism. Always expand, elaborate, and add facts ad nauseam.
For example, the three stages involved in Waldorf Education has a clear background in Steiners thinking about the world. Trying to "simplify" the article by removing Steiners metaphysical ideas about this is out of the question. However present-day Waldorf teachers skeptical view of the subject are very welcomed. Elaborate and extend, thank you.
Nixdorf 09:50, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
: Moved the above section down here to preserve chronology. Peter 02:06, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Do NOT edit to simplify! 

message: Again, Waldorf ed is practiced in many environments, not just schools.  Please stop changing the intro back to "schools."  In doing so, you completely diminish the accuracy of the article.  I have added a link to Camphill communities to emphasize that. 
Also, I am about to go in separately and take out two of the three long blocks of text you have put in on the change of the teeth.  The change of the teeth is one indicator of larger changes which signal new stages of development.  This is ONE point of development.  It definitely deserves a mention, but not a third of the article.  Waldorf ed mostly takes place well past the change of teeth, so perhaps we should talk about the education mostly.
I think we are supposed to be here to build an encyclopedia article about Waldorf ed; if you wish to go into great depth on the change of teeth, perhaps start a new article on that subject.
Also, the personal attacks and defamatory remarks on this page simply have to stop -- this is no place for your personal vendettas and it really discredits everything else you may have to say when you throw in such remarks about ANYONE.  Wonderactivist 06:36, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If you want this page to be very generic about Waldorf Education, either: 1. Move everything that has to do with schools specifically back to the Waldorf school page and keep both: one of the pages is generic and the other (about schools) is specific. 2. Make a special subsection about schools and move all the stuff about schools specifically into that section. Personally I'd opt for alternative 1.) so we can also keep the article size down. Nixdorf 15:05, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro, Link & Teeth 

message: At least at this stage of the discussion, I think I disagree with whoever it was who expressed a desire for a 'major edit' of the advocacy links as they now stand, and your desire to remove what you call the 'personal' element.  Perhaps if you flesh out your objections more, describing the specific phrases you think should be removed from the advocacy links, and why you think those phrases should be removed, I might be convinced.  Or if not completely convinced, I might compromise.  It seems to me that provided this advocacy is confined under a heading that says "advocacy", it's understood that it is coming from from an 'interested' or 'biased' point of view, namely that of those Waldorf educators who put in the links, hopefully in good faith belief that the links are justified as they stand. 
Consider the link describing Dan Dugan, for example.  Before you tar it as 'personal', remember that the adjectives it uses to describe Dugan are backed up by an independent third party: Stereophile magazine, which in its article characterized Dugan in the exact terms used in the link.  If something is backed up by independent evidence, it is more than just personal.  -- Ed
* Hi Ed, it wasn't me as I only changed the parts I outlined above and added a link to Camphill.  Everything I did, however, was reverted.  If I revert back to add the edits back, I think I would lose any links you have added back, so instead I will dupe my work out and paste it in the current page. 71.113.237.140 23:57, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Response to Nixdorf -- or Is It Wonderactivist?

message: I have deleted the overblown praise section. This is an encycopedia not a publicity brochure. I know of no other article that has a section which sings the praise of its subject (can anyone cite one?). As I understand Wikipedia, we keep to a fair factual description of the subject and a fair summary of its critics. We are not trying to sell anything to anyone. Lumos3 14:48, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Although I think we should have a praise section I wholeheartedly agree with the deletion of the spamlike scree of testimonial. Maybe somebody more knowledgable than me could come up with a shortish summary of what is good about Waldorf education.Fergie 17:32, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Deletion of Praise Section

message: I might be open to compromise, but the one you have suggested asks too much and gives too little.  
You refer to ad hominem as inappropriate, but if you go to the Wikipedia article on ad hominem, you will find this:
: Ad hominem is fallacious when applied to deduction, and not the evidence (or premise) of an argument. Evidence may be doubted or rejected based on the source for reasons of credibility 
[I added the boldface].  It seems to me this applies to Dan Dugan -- It makes sense to study the logical connective tissue of his arguments purely on the logical merits, and ignore entirely his character while you do that -- but as for the 'evidence' he presents and the premises he relies on, his credibility or lack of it should be taken into consideration.
Lumos 3 and Fergie, there are two or three links to sites related to or organized by Dugan in the Waldorf Critics section.  So the link to his McCarthy-like bahavioral background should remain in the Advocates section, until you or I or someone else provides a better argument against doing so.  
If you want to have Dugan's links in the critics section, then his credibility is relevant, somewhat as you apparently thought your position, Fergie, as a 'Waldorf advocate' (that's what you called yourself) was relevant to the evaluation of your statements here.  
In any event, calling oneself a 'Waldorf advocate' can mean just about anything.  You will no doubt be aware that Dugan or one of his flacks might adopt such a virtual internet identity, if it suited them as the best means to help themselves or hurt Waldorf.  Dugan seems quite prepared to use predatory means to further the ends he no doubt sincerely believes in.
As for the other link you have removed, the one to Nobel laureates, scientists etc., who like Waldorf, I will compromise by putting a qualifier in to the link -- "who like Waldorf" -- that should meet any objection, especially since this is under a section that announces itself clearly as 'advocacy'.
:I am reverting to Fergie's one line solution. The links can remain but the extended commentaries beside each link are an attempt to introduce POV arguments into Wikipedia . Let the reader decide how to interpret each one. Lumos3 17:18, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Fergie, your 'compromise' asks too much.  Can we come up with a better one?

message: Lumos3, you said 'the links can remain' but the link on Dugan has been removed.  Did you remove it despite saying "the links can remain"?  The answer to this question matters because if you didn't do it then that suggests that Dugan or his enablers have done it anonymously.  If you did do it, I'd want to know why you said, "the links can remain," and then removed it anyway -- why say one thing and do another?  If that is your modus operandi, should I trust your motives?   
As to the other link, "comments on Waldorf..." you say "let the reader decide how to interpret each link", that you want to remove a 'POV' from the link, and you give that motive as the reason you make the link into a 'one liner'.  
But what you deleted from the link was merely a short, two-line list of the kinds of people who are commenting -- "Nobel laureates, scientists, artists, professors of education"  How is there any "POV" involved in saying what kinds of people the commenters in fact are?  
If you follow the link, you will find that the kinds of people listed are indeed at the other end of the link, with their comments on Waldorf.  
Do you really think there are conflicting 'POVs' about who the commenters at the end of that link are?  Do you think, for example, that there is some unresolved philosophical dispute among experts, about whether Willy Brandt is really a Nobel laureate?  Do you think that it is a matter of religious debate whether Joseph Weizenbaum, of MIT, is really of MIT, and really a computer scientist?  Or that it is a matter of subjective taste whether Douglas Sloan is really a professor of education from Columbia U.?  Not so.  Anyone can easily check the credentials of these people and verify.
I guess you see my point.  To say "Nobel laureates, scientists, artists.." is not to introduce any "POV".  It is to inform readers about who is commenting.  
And you seem to forget that all this is under a heading called "Waldorf Advocacy."  That means the things under the heading ANNOUNCE that they support Waldorf, and take a POV.  Just as the links under Waldorf Criticism section definitely have a POV.  
The problem is that Waldorf is controversial and disputed right now, and for good reasons, so it is very difficult to present a completely objective POV -- people are generally at loggerheads about it --all one can really do, in my view, is let the critics have their section and the advocates have their section.  So if you persist, without careful justification, in removing stuff from the advocate section, I will consider removing links from the critic section, on the evidence that you are either a Dugan representative or other 'critic' acting in bad faith. 
This goes for the link about Dugan, which merely describes what the linked-to article itself says.  To do that is not to introduce a POV.  Remember that the Stereophile article was not written by Waldorf advocates.  It does not introduce a Waldorf advocate point of view.  It gives an independent evaluation of the behavior of one of the Waldorf critics, behavior directly relevant to his current activities against Waldorf, and relevant to the Wikipedia Waldorf entry because Dugan himself has a link or two under the Waldorf Critics section.  So if the link to the Stereophile article is to be removed, then the link to Dugan's site will be removed.  Unless you can give a decent argument why not, or we can come up with a compromise solution.   
I am open to discussion and compromise about this, but your argument for shortening the Waldorf comments link made no sense (at least none that I could understand), as can be seen by anyone who thinks about it for a half minute or reads my criticism in the above paragraphs.  As for the Dugan link, you seem to have removed it despite saying 'the links can stay'.  With such interventions on your part you make it difficult to cooperate with you.  But perhaps I have misunderstood something.  Care to explain?  -- Ed
:Ed I did not intend to remove the Dugan link if I had a hand in its removal. I have rephrased the descriptions of the links so they describe the sites they point to without trying to summarise the argument that may be carried on the site. We are not trying to make a neutral article about Waldorf education  here . We are following Wikipedia's NPOV policy -
::Articles without bias describe debates fairly rather than advocating any side of the debate. Since all articles are edited by people, this is difficult, as people are inherently biased
: I get the impression that you are trying to pursue an argument here and not describe one that is taking place elsewhere. See Neutral point of view          Lumos3 08:43, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Response to Lumos3

message: This is a topic that should not be here, but seeing as you (Ed) post anonymously, I cannot contact you via your user talk page. Wikipedia would appreciate it if you started following wikiquette- please take heed of the following
1) This is the most important- stop posting and editing anonymously. Log in to your account before editing and sign your contributions when discussing. This is expected for a prolific editor such as yourself.
2) Do not start topics on the waldorf talk page with the names of other users in the title. What you really talking about is a concern related to the article. This concern should make up the title of your topic.
3) If you really do have a concern that is directed at another user, then this concern belongs on that users talk page- not on the waldorf talk page.
4) Instead of starting a load of topics under the heading "response to...(user)" you should be actually responding to the comments made by that user using the appropriate indented text under the pertinant comment.
5) Learn to use the "Show preview" button. This way you will stop registering several edits in the system when you are in fact only making one edit
6) Please try to be more polite and a little more neutral. Your style is confrontational and paranoid- this undermines confidence in what you are trying to say.
I am being cruel to be kind. I think it is commendable that you stand up for what you believe in.--Fergie 08:03, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ed- read and take heed 

message: Howdy folks!  OK, I LOVE Waldorf ed and I think it is great that so many celebrities choose Waldorf ed...
...but,I just don't see the relevance of placing long celebrity lists on this article.  Especially when a link to the list has been on this article for quite some time.  I just don't think that celebrities are in any way involved in determining the definition or an understanding of Waldorf ed, so I am removing the long list...but leaving the link as it is quite appropriate.  --Wonderactivist 16:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Irrelevance of Celebrity Lists