Somebody has some serious issues ...

Directory:The Wikipedia Point of View/Flavius Vanillus - MyWikiBiz, Author Your Legacy

Here's how it starts:

Flavius Vanillus edited from on Wikipedia from 7 November 2005 - 2 April 2006 [1] . His contributions are interesting and important because they show clear signs of scientific education, a clear grasp of the thinking behind the scientific method and its connection with the Wikipedia principles concerning Neutral Point of View. Nonetheless he was banned from Wikipedia on 2 April 2006.

What follows is an introduction summarising the dispute that led to Flavius being banned, followed by a transcript of most but not all of his contributions. The transcript is long, but is worth reading for the wit and style, and scientific accuracy with which Flavius makes his case.

And here's a revelation towards the end which is no doubt totally unexpected and utterly astonishing - to anyone who is incapable of doing anything more than dribble all over themselves, anyway:

I'm the person that once posted as Flavius Vanillus.

The editor formerly known an Flavius ;-)

Wow. I can't begin to express the extent of my surprise.


So if you take another look at how this 'article' starts and adjust accordingly, what you get is this:

My contributions are interesting and important because they show clear signs of scientific education, a clear grasp of the thinking behind the scientific method and its connection with the Wikipedia principles concerning Neutral Point of View.

Just my POV of course - but it looks to me like somebody needs to get over themselves.

Nonetheless I was banned from Wikipedia on 2 April 2006.

Poor baby.

What follows is my own personal summary of the dispute that led to me being banned

Put a bit of time and effort into this page, huh? Seems like somebody's on a bit of a personal crusade here.

Obviously some lesser beings have unfairly conspired against you. Why can't everybody else see the clear truth that you are the metaphorical knight in shining armour in this scenario - who has nonetheless been cast out and mistreated as a result of the influence of the evil and insidious forces at work here?

I guess the truth just doesn't seem so clear to other people.

The transcript is long, but is worth reading for the wit and style, and scientific accuracy with which I make my case.

Good god, do you fantasise about yourself when you jerk off?


Issues. Serious fucking issues.


Cheers,

James T

And on a slightly more moderate note, this article reminds me of some conversations I've recently enjoyed with the fabulous Dr Judy Tang PhD (Neuropsychologist and Master Practitioner of NLP) on the subject of personality disorders - and in particular, Narcissistic Personality Disorder:

RECOGNIZING NARCISSISM IN ACTION

When the narcissistic defense is operating in an interpersonal or group setting, the grandiose part does not show its face in public. In public it presents a front of patience, congeniality, and confident reasonableness. However, beneath the surface it is supremely smug and superior. It is confident it can deceive the "fools" or their objective it is committed to blocking, while maintaining its own control and dominance over either the rules, and/or the flow of events.

(Complete article here)

Apparently, one of the traits associated with this disorder is something that would appear to NLPers as an utterly immovable internal frame of reference - particularly in regard to their own skill, intelligence, resourcefulness, versatility etc.

So this conversation between Judy and myself emerged in the context of a discussion about frames of reference, after I had indicated that I once found myself utterly vexed in a particular NLP prac training. There was one participant (let's call hir Sam) who consistently demonstrated a very robust internal frame of reference in contexts where such behaviour was impeding Sam's learning.

Now, helping people shift back and forth between internal and external frames of reference is part and parcel of a day's work for any NLP trainer - so like any experienced trainer I have lots of tricks up my sleeve, as it were. And in this one instance, I pulled out all the stops and then some ... to no avail.

It was the first and only time I've been unable to shift somebody's internal frame during an NLP prac course. A great learning experience.

(I love finding brick walls - brick walls tell me that there's something on the other side of them, if I can just get there)

So the fabulous Dr Tang asks a few questions about Sam's social behaviour ... and on considering my responses, suggests that this sounds like NPD.

Maybe. Or maybe I just missed something. Who knows?

But just for the sake of argument, let's say that NPD 'exists', and that it's a replicable disorder (apparently, evidence suggests that it may be a learned behaviour). Seems to me that there could be some useful applications here. Think about the unshakable conviction demonstrated by any number of visionaries who ended up changing the world in some small way despite being considered foolish (or even crazy) by everybody else in their field.

If 'it' could be accessed and contextualised (ie, switched on and off where appropriate), then we might have a useful modeling project here ...

Thoughts? Comments?

Cheers,

James T

Hi James T

Firstly, good grief, thats a long article!

Flavius seems to be someone who went through NLP training and found it ultimately not to his liking. The person writing about him seems to be against NLP though I can't work out the background.

Flavius seems to be an academic or similar.

The person who banned him (FT2, I think) seems to be an NLPer. They seem to have some sort of control over wikipedia.

I have to admit its a difficult case to understand.

From my perspective, as someone who is going into academic research, it seems to actually be a helpful piece of information, so I thank you.

I am increasingly having to deal with the Flavius mindset, and its not that easy to approach from an NLP perspective. It is tempting to either totally go with Flavius's point of view, or else resort to semi-religious NLP adherance. I do find myself falling for the latter when I read the article.

I have had people apply the "asperger syndrome" label to myself on this newsgroup, just because I kept asking questions. I would be reluctant to apply any sort of disease framework to Flavius's situation.


I would like to know, why the author (Ockham it seems) decided to write about Flavius in the first place?

Perhaps you have some insights?

Rich

RmtView wrote:

I would like to know, why the author (Ockham it seems) decided to write about Flavius in the first place?

Perhaps you have some insights?

You mean the author (Ockham it seems) who writes:

I'm the person that once posted as Flavius Vanillus.

The editor formerly known an Flavius ;-)

Hmmm. See my first post.

Deleted.

Note to self: Open mouth insert keyboard

Hi James T

I think you might have missed something

Maybe I am wrong though I am not used to wikis or wikipedia

Perhaps someone else could clear this up


I think its accurate to say that Ockam made an addition to the wiki which stated "I'm the person that once posted as Flavius Vanillus. "

But!

That was just a quote taken from wikipedia:

Talk:Neuro-linguistic programming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

He even quoted the IP: 64.46.47.242

Ockam looks like a different person from Flavius. I'm fairly good at judging writing types having been a proofreader for a while. But maybe someone else could have a look

Rich

Then if Ockham and Flavius are indeed two different people, this is a mystery indeed. I'm sure I'm less familiar with the ins and outs of wikis than you are, so I'll happily concede to your greater experience and expertise in that area.

Nice point about writing style, too. Come to think of it ... since part of NLP concerns itself with the structure of language, quite a few people here seem to be pretty good at spotting the kinds of things that can indicate when a piece of text was likely written by a particular person - so I'll leave those people to their expertise in recognising such things.

Cheers,

James T

james_t wrote:

But just for the sake of argument, let's say that NPD 'exists', and that it's a replicable disorder (apparently, evidence suggests that it may be a learned behaviour). Seems to me that there could be some useful applications here. Think about the unshakable conviction demonstrated by any number of visionaries who ended up changing the world in some small way despite being considered foolish (or even crazy) by everybody else in their field.

If 'it' could be accessed and contextualised (ie, switched on and off where appropriate), then we might have a useful modeling project here ...

Thoughts? Comments?

Tyler Durden in "The Blueprint" raises a similar issue, I believe - it's worth listening to, even if one isn't interested in pick-up material. He points out how the more self-confident people are, the less external cues which disagree with their beliefs seem to reach their minds (which in turn makes them even more confident, because they only see confirmatory cues, i.e. 'they're always right') - and the potential consequences of different levels of this attitude. I can't seem to recall if he mentioned something about how to increase or decrease this 'negative cue sensitivity', though - will try to listen to the workshop again during the Christmas break.

Hi Artur

Its an interesting theory, but it doesn't really fit with my perception of what has been written about in the field of self-efficacy and so on.



Confidence seems to be increased through resilience to cues rather than ignorance of cues. Such confidence seems to be a product of:

1. Competence: a level of knowledge and ability that has been tested and thoroughly failed - thoroughly succeeded before.

2. Perspective i.e. learning rather than performance oriented, evidence rather than point of view prioritized, and mutable rather than fixed intelligence view.


Perhaps you know, is Tyler Durden relying on the "subconscious processing" assumption?

Rich

Artur Krol wrote:

Tyler Durden in "The Blueprint" raises a similar issue

I'm wondering, is this the same video where he's on stage obviously under the influence of cocaine? I remember it a year back when I looked around because "everyone" was telling me "Tyler Durdens material is MINDBLWING!!! lolz".