Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: Abd

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cold_fusion&curid=7463&diff=313799415&oldid=312706341

JzG made this copyright argument over and over before, and edit warred over inclusion of sources from lenr-canr.org. The whole issue was debated ad nauseum at the WP whitelist page, and the link he removed was whitelisted specifically for usage, on consideration of the copyright arguments. There is no legal risk whatever to Wikipedia for this link, because lenr-canr.org does claim permission, and is not obligated to provide us with specific evidence for every one of their thousands of pages.

Lenr-canr.org is highly visible in the field, and if the publisher doesn't want the page offered, it can request it be taken down, and it's highly likely that they would do so. Wikipedia should not link to known copyright violations, but JzG's claim does not establish that, and he's just repeating the old arguments he made before, that were rejected; he thinks he can get away with it now that I'm blocked. Maybe he will, but I rather doubt it.

JzG also nominated for deletion my "Cabal" evidence page for RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley. Watch him, folks, he'll do what he thinks he can get away with, and more.

Posted by: Cla68

You should expect some editors to try to undo some of the edits you made now that you're temporarily banned and can't respond on-wiki. It's the nature of the Wikipedia model.

Posted by: Guido den Broeder

Don't be surprised if a group of editors will now systematically delete all your contributions one by one.

Posted by: Abd

Right, it should be expected. However, this particular issue was very widely debated before, and appeared settled. It means to me that JzG hasn't changed his spots. No big surprise and no big deal, why should I care about whether or not it is easy for readers of the article to actually read the source? No skin off my teeth.

On editors undoing stuff, it was fascinating to see Hipocrite, who has returned now that the RfAr that might have considered his behavior is closed, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Abd/Cabal&diff=313870025&oldid=313797392 the cabal evidence page that JzG put up for deletion, with an edit summary, "To the victor?"

I just didn't expect it to be so blatant. But Hipocrite was right out there before, the most flagrantly disruptive editor I've seen (beyond ones immediately blocked). It's obvious: he has people protecting him.

I don't mind blanking of the pages, by the way, though I do mind deletion, actually removing the evidence that was used by ArbComm. Even that, though, isn't a big thing in the long run. The Cab's days are numbered. I've seen more Cab activity in the last day than I'd seen in a long time, I'm not sure what that means. Some of them had been laying low, but still it's a huge burst.

I won't. However, there just might be some resistance to that.... we'll see. There is a series of voting system AfDs filed today, one on an article I recreated, filed by a probable sock of the blocked Yellowbeard, Cordyceps2009 (T-C-L-K-R-D) , he's taking advantage of the opportunity.

Posted by: Cla68

JzG also still http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ADepository_Trust_%26_Clearing_Corporation&diff=313952327&oldid=313482369 that he was wrong about Weiss/Mantanmoreland.

Posted by: Moulton

It is customary in WikiCulture to stubbornly cling to erroneous beliefs.

Perhaps there should be a required course in Fuzzy Logic to counteract that tendency.

Posted by: Abd

I emailed him, telling him about Cordyceps2009 and reminding him that he'd blocked Yellowbeard in September 2008. I'd say it's definite that this is Yellowbeard, but when I filed an SSP report in July, it was dismissed with a let's see.... Now he's on to more of Yellowbeard's interests, such as:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Proportional_approval_voting

And, of course, he voted to delete the cabal page, for Yellowbeard became obsessed with retaliating against me, because I'd rained on his AfD parade; until I noticed and started intervening, he had succeeded in nominating a whole series of voting systems articles, he probably is an Instant runoff voting activist, for he was eliminating the various competing systems and voting system criteria that are used by experts to criticize IRV.

Blatant sock. Yellowbeard was, as well, from the beginning, didn't bother to conceal it. Obviously experienced editor, immediately active in AfD, first edits. Yet it took donkey's ages before anyone did anything about it. I thought he might be Nrcprm2026, but I now think, probably not. If he is Nrcprm, there might be old checkuser data.

Posted by: Milton Roe

There is no such thing as "old checkuser data."

Posted by: Abd

And there is no cabal. If only the current checkuser data is available, it's unlikely anything could be correlated, because of the lapse of time. But Nrcprm2026 has been a very persistent sock master; the reason I suspected him was that there is an apparent coincidence of interests around Instant runoff voting. Because Nrcprm2026 has been so persistent, some checkusers might have saved data. While it's possible, as I said, I now consider it unlikely. I suspect, as well, that Nrcprm2026 would also not consider me, at this point, as an enemy, because of cold fusion POV, so the edit to the cabal evidence MfD would be puzzling. For Yellowbeard, not puzzling at all. SOP.

Posted by: SirFozzie

I think your "cabal" page ought to be deleted, Abd.. but I also think WMC's attack page should be deleted too.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Abd, why do you keep acting "surprised' when this crap goes on?

Have you been too busy blubbering at us (about cold fusion and Connolley)......
to notice all the ugly things http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=17020 about Sweet Mister Chapman in past years?

Did you really think your enemies on-wiki would not destroy your leavings after you were banned?
If you did, then why do you keep picking at the same bleeding scabs?

Posted by: dtobias

He does seem to have http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ashida_Kim_%287th_nomination%29&diff=prev&oldid=313788019 that it is "right to delete [[WP:BLP]] articles of questionable notability when the subject requests it".

Posted by: Abd

Nice day today. I'm not surprised when I comment on the weather.
Yes. Entirely too busy. But blubbering is such ... fun! My entire diet is fat, saturated. So what if the ketones get me a little jacked? Smart or sweet, pick one.
No, I didn't really think that. Anyway, JzG has been reverted. He's edit warred over this before, what will happen now? Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of Same Old. Meanwhile, a message from our sponsor.
Because picking at scabs is a natural instinct. Don't you?

Posted by: Moulton

It is a pleasant surprise when someone acquires sufficient self-discipline to override their baser instincts with higher echelons of intelligence, wisdom, and insight.

Posted by: Son of a Yeti

Has he ever admitted anything?

Posted by: Moulton

If not, has he ever admitted that he's never admitted anything?

Posted by: Abd

Has anyone ever asked him if he ever admitted that he never admitted anything?

However, there is an example very recently where he admitted something. I sent him an email about an obvious sock of Yellowbeard (T-C-L-K-R-D) , Cordyceps2009 (T-C-L-K-R-D) and he put up a notice at AN/I about it, noting that it was from a banned editor (me), but admitting that the suspicion was "worth investigating." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Sock and a http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=314528883#Sock for future generations.

And this raises an issue: involved editors and administrators are motivated to so something about a problem, the uninvolved may not be. In all the protest about my work to confront use of tools while involved, something was lost: it wasn't the actual use that I was protesting, but the failure to acknowledge involvement and recuse after using the tools. JzG was here involved, it could be asserted, because he previously blocked Yellowbeard. One editor commented "duck." But no admin picked up on more than that, and nobody has filed a new SSP report, now that "sock" is even more obvious than it was before, at the time of the first report. It's work. If nobody cares enough to put together what is needed, nothing is done.

If an involved admin asks for help (and JzG's comment can be read that way), I've often seen the report ignored, or, worse, debate began. I documented a situation where an AfD was involved, and leaving the abusively re-opened AfD open attracted comment, creating a hugely disruptive AfD, with the process and content cabals duking it out. The admin had scrupulously avoided protecting the page or blocking the editor who was reverting his speedy close, but recused. And got a bad result. I argued, later, that the admin should have, at least, have protected the article, and probably should have blocked the editor, who was a blatant sock, and then recused, reporting to a noticeboard. Instead the issue at AN/I became whether or not the article was notable. If ArbComm needs discipline, AN/I needs it even more, the original purpose of the page has been lost, it was designed as emergency request for admin assistance, and instead it has become, too often, a forum to debate issues. It could be fixed, rather easily done in a technical sense, but with only difficulty because of serious inertia. The admin who created AN/I later wrote, in a retirement notice, that it had become a monster.

Much argument against enforcing recusal rules comes from a legitimate concern along this line. Editors who have sufficient knowledge to make good decisions, are often involved. Uninvolved administrators frequently err because they don't understand the situation. Disentangling this from the fact that involved admins are often biased is necessary. I would claim that admins aren't usually dinged for action while involved, but for tenacious refusal to recuse after involvement is questioned. And I claimed, to much derision, that admins should normally recuse upon request, no issue of blame or necessity for disruptive discussion.

An error recently made was that a block of WMC for edit warring over a BLP issue was reversed because the admin was allegedly involved. Not only was the claim of involvement preposterously thin (no prior involvement was shown, only edits working on the particular incident to remove a BLP violation after a BLP noticeboard request), but involvement is no reason to wheel-war, unless the underlying claim of the blocking admin has no merit at all. Rather, the behavior of the blocked editor should always be the issue. Involvement does not equal substantial error, only, possibly, procedural error.

The arguments used to support WMC's unblock were the precise opposite of the arguments presented in favor of WMC's blocks of others while blatantly involved.

However, there was a recent case, where A Man In Black (T-C-L-K-R-D) was desysopped for an involved block, even though he immediately went to a noticeboard with it. However, in this case there was serious long-term dispute, and AMIB should have known better; and the block was only contributory. I counselled him to immediately and formally recuse, and he did so, but it wasn't enough.

With WMC blocking me for violation of the community ban from Cold fusion (the first block, before the RfAr), I never raised the issue at the time because it was trivial; it shouldn't have been him, as ArbComm found -- AFAIK -- and a neutral admin might not have blocked for a harmless edit -- that was actually the precedent at that point --, but the block was only for 24 hours, and there was a basis for it, the ban.

The real problem was that after the community ban expired, he continued to insist on his right to maintain the ban on his own initiative. So the RfAr was over continued recusal failure in spite of explicit assertion of involvement in dispute, and ArbComm made its decision on desysopping based primarily on WMC's insanely stubborn block of me during the case; being adverse parties in an accepted RfAr is about as blatant a proof of "involvement in a dispute" as can be imagined.

Under IAR, however, which is policy, and absent blatant involvement, admins should act, and be protected for acting, according to their own best judgment; they are required, I suggest, to notify the community for immediate review whenever they act in a situation where appearance of involvement might exist. They are required to abstain from action, and instead request assistance, as would any other involved or concerned editor, wherever they should reasonably know that they are, in fact, involved.

Posted by: Moulton

Sominex dealers should be afraid. Very afraid.

Posted by: Abd

I always place a short sell order for GlaxoSmithKline stock before writing a tome here. You don't think I do it for my health, do you? They also make anti-anxiety meds, so it's two birds with one tome.

Posted by: Chindog

Why would anybody email a person who doesn't want anything to do with them? Are you autistic spectrum?

Why have you not slinked away? The cab ran over you, Rick. Can I call you Rick? You are the Rick(shaw) that swerved in front of the Cab(al), then got run over, so Rick seem appropriate. The Cab lost a headlight, Rick lost his consciousness for three months, as happens between cabs and ricks. Little floaty birds still circle but Rick is out cold.

Rick, what is your fascination with harassing JzG?

Posted by: Somey

Lots of reasons. Perhaps to point out a good opportunity for that person to do the right thing?


At the moment, you're the one sounding autistic, I'm afraid.


Okay, now you're sounding like an autistic Wikipedian. "Waaah, why won't people magically disappear when I click the ban-button? Doesn't the button work?"


JzG is one of the worst Wikipedians in Wikipedia history, and given the size of the user base, it's perfectly natural that people might find him interesting, in the sort of way an archaeologist might be interested in the ways uncontrolled tree growth destroys buildings over time.

Moreover, you're misusing the term "harassing."

Posted by: Kato

Emailing someone to tell them about a possible "sockpuppet" is harassing them?

And besides, this is JzG we're talking about. If your bar for what constitutes "harassment" is that low, JzG himself would be in San Quentin by now. Next to Amorrow, WillyOnWheels and that Grawp guy, JzG is probably the most destructive figure ever to descend on Wikipedia.

Posted by: Abd

Perhaps because I edited Wikipedia for two years. It does take some time to recover.
Funny, if I remember correctly, JzG asked that too, when I said he might be making a mistake. Do you by any chance live in England? No, I'm not autistic, I'm just plain crazy, but I convinced the judge to let me go. Look, if you could see what I see, you'd be crazy too. Instead, you are just stupid and vicious.
Because I don't feel humiliated? I was blocked a year ago, and I felt obsessed. I deliberately didn't put up an unblock template, because I wanted to see what would happen. This time, I felt relief. Why should I slink? I did make mistakes, but I didn't do anything wrong. And I'm still not sure that I could actually have done it better. The results were decent.
They did? What makes you think that? How come I'm free and they're still trapped, slaves to a monster project that they don't understand and that will eventually chew them up and spit them out?
Hello? Sending him an email that he properly responded to? He was the one who blocked the sock master before, I thought he'd like to know. He didn't have to do anything, but he did the right thing, in fact, and he didn't complain. So who are you? Why are you hiding?


I didn't think so either. I was a little worried JzG might think so, but it wasn't my intention and he did seem to respond well.

It should be said that JzG didn't do anything to me. WMC did, but I'm not carrying resentment about WMC either. I feel sorry for him. On the other hand, I've felt sorry for some pretty awful people, much worse than WMC. Maybe I think we all have the capacity to be awful, if we aren't careful, if we only imagine that behaving badly is what other people do, not us.
I really didn't think that he was that bad. I don't think WMC was that bad. I find the evil of some of their supporters worse, the ones who egg them on but who would never warn them that they are about to drive off a cliff. Where were JzG's friends? Where were WMC's friends? The ones who would tell him, uh, you're going too far here, before he trashes his bit?

WMC is in a bad way, he seems to be lashing out, trying to see how far he can go without being blocked. Bad sign.

Posted by: Kato

JzG was told in no uncertain terms to knock it off by many people in this Rfc last year

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/JzG2


I didn't think so either until he completely lost the plot in 2007. You are probably unaware of the full history. He accelerated almost all the biggest disputes in WP's history and helped them into the international news. From the Naked Short Selling thing, the Secret List thing, to the Rachel Marsden thing and many more including being a catalyst in feuds with Greg Kohs, Jon Awbrey, Dan Tobias and TheFieryAngel. His judgement is berserk.

Posted by: Angela Kennedy

And me! (Didn't want to be left out.)

Posted by: Mathsci

Exactly which edits are you referring to? Abd has hardly made any edits to wikipedia articles that have lasted. Easy enough to check for yourself. He has created a stub or two.

Just as when Abd was page banned, things will proceed calmly.

It's like having a fly in the room: irritating when it's there, but immediately forgotten once it's been swatted.

BTW Abd's allegations of a cabal, rejected by ArbCom, have so far driven away two female contributors, Woonpton and Crohniegal. Not great. But that's what happens when people make things up.

Posted by: Cla68

Well, Woonpton http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AWoonpton&diff=313008291&oldid=312928728 on her userpage that, "I'm not at all interested in editing noncontroversial areas of the encyclopedia...my interest was in hoping to slow the accelerating handover of the encyclopedia to fringe interests of all kinds." I guess that included ABD.

In my opinion, anyone who edits Wikipedia with the intention of trying to "fix" controversial science articles and eliminate "misinformation" are doomed to disappointment and frustration, because the Wikipedia model doesn't support that kind of agenda. You have to be willing, in most cases, to compromise and allow minority viewpoints/POV in if they're supported by reliable sources.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Oh looky. We had Tweedledum and now here's Tweedledee, trying to push this
thread off-topic and onto their mutual neuroses.

Posted by: Moulton

And it's one, two, three, what are we fight for?

Dedicated scientists and academics will be the first to abandon the fight, as they have much better ways to spend their time and energy. That leaves the warrior types, who thrive on the thrill of the fight.

And so, on balance, WP erodes what little academic lustre it might have once enjoyed, and instead becomes an increasingly corrupt and banal fight game.

Posted by: Abd

I'm thinking of those whom he would think of as friends, if there were any. "Allies" is not a synonym for "friends." An ally will not tell you that you are in danger if you foolishly attack his enemy. A friend will. ArbComm reminded me not to persist with methods of dispute resolution that were ineffective. Those "methods" were actually attempts to wake up JzG's friends to the danger. In fact, though, the danger to his bit wasn't great, but that's because he effectively retired as the RfAr approached. Had he insisted on his actions, as WMC later did, he might have been desysopped. Another admin explained the situation to me as JzG being put on a short leash. If he does shit like that again, he's toast, as long as anyone cares enough about it to bring it to ArbComm.
Not merely probable, it's a sure thing. I wasn't going after JzG, I was supporting the principle of administrative recusal. The same was true in the next case, but the Cab did successfully muddy it, and it was only WMCs almost-beyond-belief stubbornness that led to his desysopping. There are lessons to be learned. It shouldn't be so hard.
Wikipedia's judgment process is berserk. JzG was burning out. Given the structure, it is to be expected. Very few can survive the environment unscathed, it brings out, eventually, the worst in people. This could be fixed. Anyone interested in how, please email me, and you could become part of the group that considers and, perhaps, develops a solution. It's only obvious once it's understood, and before then it is far from obvious, there are a hundred "obvious" objections that turn out to be based on unexamined but very common assumptions. Only a few people can get past that, at first, which is very normal and says nothing about the intelligence or good will of the others. But it only takes a few, and it will expand from there.

Posted by: Moulton

Recusal is a practice found in ethical cultures. It is not a practice found in corrupt cultures.

Theoretically, a corrupt culture can be repaired and become an ethical culture. But in the case of Wikipedia this is unlikely, as Jimbo has expressly declared that the concepts of ethical management are beyond the scope of any WMF-sponsored project.

Posted by: Abd

The ones that are being undone, of course!
This thread is supposed to be about JzG. Want to write about me, start a thread, asshole.

However, the cries that Abd should be banned started with RfC/JzG 3, so I'm defacto a part of the issue. That was quite a show! Simple RfC, conclusive evidence, support from Durova, etc. And the response of two-thirds of editors commenting: ban Abd!

The substance: As a Wikipedia editor, I was mostly reactive. I was creative occasionally, when I was expert on the topic or did special research. Take a look at the history of Donna Upson (T-H-L-K-D), for example, or look at the history of lyrikline.org (T-H-L-K-D). Almost every "what links here" for the latter was placed by me. That lyrikline.org is whitelisted at en.wikipedia was my work, and there are two jobs remaining to be undone: delisting at meta, which I believe is now possible, and adding more links to covered poets. There is a page in my user space, showing pages on poets with en.WP articles where links were added, and the hundreds remaining to be done. User:Abd/lyrikline poets (T-H-L-K-D). In addition, redlinks there may indicate an article that could be created, or the spelling is different.

However, from the beginning, my interest was in social structures, and my first semi-SPA edits in August 2007 were about voting systems, which are an aspect of that, and where I have some considerable expertise, recognized off-wiki and also on, in the RfAr, by Newyorkbrad in his vote for the ban.
It was calm with the original page ban because I kept it that way. It's not calm now, disruption based on this case has expanded. Yes, things work out, but the wasted energy is enormous.
When the room is fully of stinking bullshit, swatting flies is just like .... playing whack-a-mole with expanding legions of persistent socks, never considering that maybe they had a point, and when people have a point and you try to shut them up, they sometimes become persistent even though you'd think it makes no sense.
What ArbComm rejected was a word. I asked them to address the substance, they mostly didn't, probably because it is a difficult issue and they'd have had serious trouble finding consensus on it.

As to Woonpton and Chronie, these were far from innocent bystanders suffering collateral damage. They were named only after investigation, and the evidence was given. Not of reprehensible collaboration, nor for any reprehensible action at all, I made no effort to show such, and though some level of reprehensibility could be inferred from some of the evidence I presented on them, it is mild by Wikipedia standards. Basically, a "cabal" allegation for an editor was specific to the case, and represented a judgment, clearly shown by the evidence, of a prejudgment, a kind of "involvement" with the issues or persons of the case. That's all. And if Mathsci actually can't understand that, well, it just goes to show that expertise in mathematics doesn't teach you anything at all about people. And if he can, he's not only an asshole, he's a liar.

What I called a "cabal" is what Carcharoth called "an appearance of a cabal." Appearances have effects, they are socially real. It's like "racism." There is no physical reality to "race," that's well-known, but a lot of people will argue with that! It's a social reality, and it has real effects. If I tell someone that they are racist, I might be absolutely correct, in the academic sense: they believe, or act as though they believe, that race is real. But it will be considered inflammatory, and probably correctly, unless sufficient context has been laid. I laid the context for "cabal," but the context was ignored and denied even when reaffirmed, with comments like, "Yeah, but what he really means to say is," followed by what I repeatedly denied. And then Woonpton and Crohnie reacted to (or created, in the case of Woonpton) the false imputations only, in spite of substantial attempts to personally explain. Crohnie apologized, actually, but then was egged again on by Woonpton. With Crohnie, I assume simple gullibility, falling in with a bad crowd, and holding understandable opinions, with Woonpton, it's worse than that, the woman is vicious and vindictive, ABF personified.

Crohnie is not editing because of back surgery, and she seems to be recovering. Maybe her temperament will recover, too. Woonpton loudly protested she was retired, but isn't, and had made her conclusions about the Cold fusion article before I was ever involved, and I was banned since the beginning of June, she didn't take up editing! Mathsci is just repeating the propaganda about "driving away experts or editors." Nobody was driven away by me, unless perhaps they were incapable of ignoring arguments that they ignorantly disagree with. Or even that they intelligently disagree with.

Posted by: Abd

It's not my fault he broke my nice new rattle.

Actually, I was wearing a crow costume, having been hired by the crow to flush them out of hiding and soften them up. So when the crow shows up, they will say, "That's just Abd again, hah hah!"

Posted by: Moulton

Ayup.

Posted by: Viridae

Not in the slightest, he used an effective metaphor.

Posted by: Abd

The assumption here is that Jimbo and the WMF are in charge. They have legal control of the wiki, but they depend on the real sponsor, the community, and the only reason the community can't fix wikipedia is that it's asleep, dreaming as it were, and waking up isn't yet practical. But it will be. Waking up the community is my project, and "community" actually means "human community," as I wrote long ago, Wikipedia is just a particular project, one relatively small example that would benefit, realize its ideals without compromising its values, if even a fraction of the editors understood and applied the concepts. Could actually be quite a small fraction.

Cynicism is a normal response at this point. Only a few will be able to move past this formidable obstacle. It's not going to be handed to the community on a silver platter, they wouldn't accept it, they would believe that it's poison. I was prepared for this by a schizophrenic mother who did actually believe that about poison; to survive my childhood, I had to be able to tolerate insanity (not without damage, but that's another story -- or maybe it's this one!).

All that has happened with Wikipedia is that individual insanity has been replaced by the collective insanity of an ochlocracy, which reduces collective intelligence instead of enhancing it, and while democratic structures improve the situation some (ArbComm is a democratic structure), consensus structures can do much more, far more effectively and, in the end, more efficiently. It is known how to do the latter on a small scale, what is new to the FA/DP concepts is potential application on a large scale, which has been considered impossible by political scientists. They didn't think of something.

Posted by: Moulton

Jimbo put himself in charge of rejecting any effort to introduce the principles of ethical management into the project.

Posted by: Abd

Never mistake effort for control.

Posted by: Moulton

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

Jimbo, however, threw out the water, so that no one might drink.

Posted by: Mathsci

Which users are you suggesting edit Wikipedia with the intention of trying to "fix" controversial science articles and eliminate "misinformation"? Certainly I have never edited any wikipedia article of that type. Who are you talking about then?

Posted by: Cla68

Only one editor other than Woonpton, that I've seen, has admitted to trying to protect the science articles from minority or fringe views, and that's http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ACla68&diff=311752715&oldid=311747946 (there's another recent diff where he also indicates that he's trying to keep out fringe views, but I don't feel like looking for it right now). Actually, I think JzG has said something along those lines also.

Posted by: Grep

So I wonder who it was who actively edited Myron Evans and later voted to delete it as "extremely bad science" (see commentary http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Pseudoscience&diff=76924376&oldid=76786605), edited Florentin Smarandache 15 times, edited Ruggero Santilli, edit warred with Danko Georgiev MD to remove http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=143500254 about Unruh's interferometer from Bill Unruh, edit warred over Jeremy Dunning-Davies, created Einstein–Cartan–Evans theory, ...

Must have been some other member of the team then.

Posted by: Mathsci

Many of the articles you're talking about have been deleted. I wonder why? Could it be that they involve (a) pseudoscience (b) self-promotion? Didn't Danko Georgiev MD out me on wikipedia as the chairman of the mathematics dept in UC Berkeley? Was he not indeed stopped from editing WP by his acting Ph.D. supervisor in Japan as a result? Was the deleted article by Georgiev not on his own unrefereed research and a BLP violation of Bill Unruh, the Canadian physicist?

Perhaps that escaped your notice.

As for Francesco Fucilla and his self-promotional films (all 3 deleted fairly recently), as usual you don't seem to know what you're talking about. He - and the IP edits you're referring to - have been discussed on various noticeboards.

I'm glad you like the ECE theory article. Which articles have you edited on wikipedia, either recently or back in 2006/2007?

Just as a matter of interest, unless you're an admin on en.wiki, how can you see deleted contributions?

Posted by: Grep

So you have indeed edited controversial science articles, some of which you "fixed", and some where you voted at AFD to "eliminate". Why did you deny that before and why are youbothering to obscure it now?

Posted by: Mathsci

These were pseudoscience articles by a related group of self-promoting non-entities. There's nothing controversial about the articles, because, apart from the RL posturing of the proponents, the "theories" are known to be either trivial or nonsense. Most of the articles have been deleted (quite rightly).

Myron Evans for example uses an incorrect version of the Bianchi identities for a connection to justify his "theory". This uncontroversial fact can hardly have escaped your eagle eye. An eye that can look at deleted edits, normally inaccessible to anybody but an admin on WP. I find it quite creepy that you do that and even more creepy that you don't tell us how.

Anyway what's controversial about the article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECE_theory?

Posted by: Grep

So you have indeed been trying to eliminate "misinformation". Why do you deny it? There are some people who might even think that a Good Thing. Cla68's point was that it was "doomed to disappointment and frustration", not actually Wrong.

Posted by: Mathsci

What nonsense you write sometimes.

You haven't answered my questions about deleted edits.

I'm quite happy to see pseudoscience articles deleted - it occupies very little of my time. It's usually just a question of items on my watchlist.

The bulk (99.9%) of my WP namespace editing is on a completely different set of articles and is quite time-consuming, be it on non-commutative harmonic analysis, Handel organ concertos or Mantegna's Triumphs. The main problem is finding sources, usually not available on the web.

No need for creepy distortions.

Posted by: Angela Kennedy

Could we PLEASE refrain from the 'autistic' name calling please? I don't care whether it's intended as methaphor or a genuinely held belief, it's done purely to discredit people's views (an example of ad hominem), and it's an insult to people who suffer from the condition.

Or shall we start calling each other 'gay' and 'spastics' as insults as well?

Posted by: Achromatic

Why? Leave aside the barrow-pushers, but what is inherently wrong with articles on pseudoscience?

Should we also AFD what is perhaps the ultimate pseudoscience, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy? If not, why not?

Posted by: Somey

He started it!

Still, you're right - I should have just deleted that remark completely, or perhaps replaced it with the word "twat," or better yet, "poopy pants." Sorry about that!

Posted by: Angela Kennedy

Twat, poopy pants, prick or arsehole is absolutely fine (I mean as generic insults).

Posted by: dogbiscuit

I think you are being unfair to the doubly incontinent and those who are troubled in the nether regions myself.

Posted by: Angela Kennedy

Yes- but doubly incontinent and troubled nether region sufferers will not have their arguments/position trashed by insinuating they have mental health issues, which really is a prime example of ad hominem, and insulting to people who are actually neurologically challenged through no fault of their own. That sort of thing is far more dangerous and offensive than generic obscene terms: twat, arsehole and prick are relatively value neutral insults- after all, most of us have one of them in common, and the other two we tend to have in common with at least some people.

I'd rather be called a C*** than have my mental health called into question - but then I've seen perhaps more than most what actual damage the second type of attack does to people.

Monday morning- and I'm fighting for the right to be called a c***.

Posted by: dogbiscuit

Glad to be of service

Posted by: Appleby

They're fine so long as it is made clear that they are pseudoscience yet are notable for some reason.

Posted by: Mathsci

They are not suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia, because they're usually just meaningless nonsense. They are a side-effect of the internet, that wonderful tool for self-promotion. Editors on WP can try to debunk pseudoscience (using RS), but that can often cause more trouble than it's worth if the pseudoscientists are living and active on the internet.

Hydrino theory is a good example of a discredited pseudoscientific theory which apparently for the time being does not merit a separate wikipedia article.

Posted by: Abd

Well, I fully understand the thinking, but hydrino theory is more than just something promoted by BlackLight Power, and having Hydrino (T-H-L-K-D) as a simple redirect to BlackLight Power is pretty misleading. Sure, Mills is the original theorist, but there is RS that doesn't mention BlackLight Power.

However, that's just an opinion. The matter should be decided according to what is in reliable source, not according to my opinion or Mathsci's opinion or LeadSongDog's opinion. It's obvious that hydrino theory isn't "generally accepted," indeed, the opposite. But it is a huge encyclopedia, and having a couple of articles, fairly short, dealing with hydrinos, Blacklight Power, or any other notable aspect, notability as shown by presence in reliable source, is to be expected, normally.

I see no basis for calling hydrino theory "pseudoscience," yet. Absolutely, challenges very well-accepted theory, but challenge to accepted theory does not make for "pseudoscience," not when the techniques and methods of science are being used. There are obvious reasons to be skeptical of both hydrino theory and the claims of BlackLight Power, but it is not at all the job of Wikipedia editors to make these judgments or to overlay an opinion on the articles, but rather, it's an obligation to follow the sources and find consensus.

Hydrinos are one of the explanations advanced for cold fusion. I may think that's bogus, for a number of reasons, but the fact is that it is in relaible source, independently published. That deserves a mention in the cold fusion article; it actually made it there, and stuck for a while, having been accepted by Hipocrite, until WMC, your hero and martyr, reverted it out with his "lets wind everyone up" edit.

There has been argument against hydrino theory, as is to be expected. It is not accepted, as is to be expected. Biut I have not seen anything so far that actually "discredits" it, until and unless the experimental evidence asserted is impeached successfully. Otherwise, at the very least, hydrino theory stands as a conceivable explanation of one or more anomalies, unconfirmed.

The situation is quite different with cold fusion itself. Low energy nuclear reactions are abundantly confirmed, recognized in reliable source, and the weight of reliable source overall, favoring the reality of LENR, is huge. Only by determined and persistent rejection of peer-reviewed reliable source have the skeptics been able to keep the story of what was called by skeptics "the scientific fiasco of the twentieth century" out of Wikipedia. One article? I have material from skeptics, enough for quite a few articles, plus all the other material which is weightier, overall.

Did you know that JzG's supposedly skeptical friend, the electrochemist whom he practically worshipped, and to whom he ascribed his views on cold fusion, actually believed that the excess heat was real, according to JzG, and simply that it wasn't likely to be nuclear in origin, but due to some other unknown explanation? Science has been built from investigating anomalies, not from rejecting them as "unidentified experimental error."

But there are a whole series of facts that somehow got overlooked by many in the process of burying cold fusion, such as excess heat/helium correlation at the right Q value, confirmed by multiple independent groups, known by the mid-1990s. And certainly JzG's friend wasn't going to see the reports of the Q value in the Wikipedia article, which is what he was commenting on to JzG, it was systematically excluded in spite of abundant presence in multiple peer-reviewed secondary sources, supposedly the gold standard, passed over in favor of weak sources stating what is recognized as a total misunderstanding by an anonymous bureaucrat.

Had it been there, the electrochemist might have said, "Hmm.... what's this? Is this real? Let me look at that source .... Really? I'm going to have to think about this!"

Mathsci, you have helped a total ignoramus on science, Enric Naval, who didn't know the difference between nuclei, atoms, and molecules, literally, and who didn't know the difference between a correlation and a anecdotal result, sit on cold fusion, so, you will get what you richly deserve. A promise. And I don't have to lift a finger. But I will anyway, whether you can imagine it or not.

Posted by: Mathsci

I have done no such thing. I might possibly have helped in identifying a disruptive editor.

I suppose you are talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppenheimer–Phillips_process, a physics stub.

On the talk page ScienceApologist, a Ph.D. student in astrophysics at Columbia University, referred to your own misconceptions. He also quite rightly called hydrino theory outlandish.

But it's just a stub. Please move on. No need to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Posted by: Somey

Four paragraphs with references is a stub? Well, then, with stubs like that, who needs articles?

Enric Naval, who I believe is also a WR member, made http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blacklight_Power&diff=290839036&oldid=290449143 to the Blacklight Power (T-H-L-K-D) article that included this paragraph:

I can see at least one or two errors in there right off the bat.

Posted by: Cock-up-over-conspiracy

The internet is equally a wonderful tool of self-promotion for the fetid old farts belonging to Septic Societies (sic) to amplify their priggish brays of "discredited" and "pseudoscience", and to coordinate and encourage themselves.

The Pee-dia might just bring the worst of all such cults together in order to waste their time in endless and pointless conflict rather than actually doing any science or going off and making life a nicer place for the rest of us.

God, it is so boring but by no means the worst shit on the Pee-dia that is "not suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia". In fact, come to think about it, "not suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia" is just another such meaningless bray. The ultimate meaningless condescension because the Pee-dia is not an encyclopedia.

Has anyone else had a look in some of the dark and dusty corners recently? It is ridiculous. Cold Fusion is just another one of many idiotic and definitely 'under-unity' (in terms of the heat they generate on the Wiki-servers versus the energy required to make it happen) hot pots that draws such attention.

Take another obvious point of critical mass, the David Irving topic, where it takes not one but ... 28 ... separate references to nail him down as being "discredited" (despite that most are probably copies of the same ADL press release) when, on the other hand, "the best way" is apparently to just say, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Irving&oldid=267319574.

Personally, I'd rather be honestly called a cunt as well, rather than have someone contort themselves with some attempt to sound pseudo-intellectual ... whilst meaning worse.

Posted by: Angela Kennedy

Aaagh! The old 'pseudoscience' name-calling again.

Do you even know what 'pseudoscience' is?

In the OED, it is defined as 'collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method.'

But that can mean all sorts of beliefs and practices, accepted as based on 'scientific method' which are actually not- or have been based on 'bad science' etc. etc.

Does Freud qualify as a 'pseudoscientist'? Is psychoanalysis a 'pseudoscience'? He did follow some scientific empirical method (as flawed as that has turned out to be.) A Lot of fields are empricial, even where they are flawed.

Is qualitative method in the social sciences 'pesudoscientific'? Are theories about class, gender, pseudoscientific, even if they are based on empirical observation?

What about Dawkins 'meme' theory?

Is bad science where massive leaps of faith are posited as being based on 'the scientific method' 'pseudoscience', on account of them being 'mistaken' in their claims to scientific method? That would mean the 'obesity' article might have to be removed (there's a lot of problems with the 'science' in that field, for example!), and many psychology articles.

We could go on like this all day really. Is this 'pseudoscience'? Is that pseudoscience? The point is Mathsci is no more an appropriate arbiter of what is 'pseudoscience' than most people- so getting a clear, unambigous accurate arbitration of what is and isn't 'pseudoscience', on Wikipedia of all places, would be like trying to herd cats.

Posted by: Appleby

Indeed, and what is a pseudoscience can change over time. Old accepted beliefs can be discredited; old rejected ones can be vindicated. All we should do is record what is notable and say what credible peer-reviewed sources say about it.

Posted by: Cock-up-over-conspiracy

Exactly ... pseudoscience name-calling ...

the old boys "camel spit" of the academic world. Along with the affected "discredited" which correlates to "... and double that with knobs on". It has given birth to a new cult of orthodoxy, "Rational Skepticism ... a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism". It even sounds like a hissing snake ... sssss-eudo-sssss-ience.

"You're discredited ..."
"Oh, no, I am not ..."
"Oh, yes, you are ..."
"No, you're the one who is discredited now ..."
"Oh, no, I am not ..."
"Oh, yes, you are, you are ... you're discredited AND you're pseudoscience AND pseudohistory ..."
"Oh, no, I am not ... now you're pseudoscientist."

Let's face it, the guys that were good at chemistry and physics never were the coolest in the class and the Cold Fusion Skeptic Rat Packing really was one of the nastier, more irrational episodes in the history of science ... however it pans out in the end.

Posted by: Mathsci

Yes, Somey, it is just a stub. Despite your self-assurance, you appear to display no experience of science articles.

Posted by: Milton Roe

You must remember, Bub
A stub is just a stub
Machsci is just Mathsci.
The fundamental missing things
As time goes by....

-- Sam Roe

Okay, I played it again.

Posted by: Grep

I see that Einstein–Cartan–Evans theory is currently categorized as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pseudoscience. Will you be putting it up for AFD? It takes very little time.

Posted by: Appleby

That's fair enough. They give citations to justify the tag.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

Being wrong doesn't make a theory "pseudoscientific". What makes it pseudoscientific is refusing to allow the theory to be tested, refusing to accept or consider evidence that suggests that the theory is incorrect, or stating the theory in such a way that no evidence could possibly be produced so as to falsify the claims made by the theory.

The Einstein-Cartan-Evans theory is a scientific theory that happens to be wrong: it was proposed, examined, and rejected, all in accordance with the scientific method. Unless its proponents continue to rail on about how it must be true despite the objections, it is erroneous to call it "pseudoscience". It should be tagged instead as a "rejected scientific theory", along with phlogiston and the geocentric model of the solar system.

Posted by: Abd

warning: long.

Yes. There is a phenomenon which is a mirror of pseudoscience, perhaps the best name I've seen for it is pseudoskepticism. Pseudoskepticism refuses to consider evidence in favor of a theory, because the theory "has been discredited," i.e., rejects fact ("evidence" is fact, when properly framed) due to rejection of theory that the fact might imply.

What became more and more clear to me as I read the literature on cold fusion was that this is what happened. Defects in Fleischmann's research in narrow areas were exaggerated and extended to cover and reject by association his entire work; replications were ignored with a host of excuses and thus it was proclaimed that the work hadn't been replicated. The editor of Science proclaimed cold fusion "dead." He's now dead, and the field he tried to bury isn't. Since when did a journal editor gain the right to declare an entire field of research, with as many as hundreds of active researchers at the time, "dead"?

In 1990, apparently, because it seemed he got away with it, for years. It's truly a great story, showing how far the "consensus" can stray from being solidly grounded in experiment and the scientific method.

Fact: many research groups have reported unexpected heat, way above experimental error margins, nuclear radiation, helium correlated with the heat, and elemental transformations in the palladium deuteride system (and in some related condensed matter systems). That is an uncontestable fact, and each element in this fact can be specified. Key word is "reported." Does that mean that cold fusion is taking place? Well, that's a theory, an interpretation, not a fact. What we would hope is that those who issue opinions on theories would know the facts!

Better question, is the reported excess heat real? What we can say at this point is that it is unexplained, except through theories that involve nuclear reactions, and none of those theories are fully satisfactory. Some have made predictions that panned out, such as Preparata's prediction that helium would be the predominant ash (and which then predicts that the helium would correlate with the heat, as it does as reviewed in p.r. secondary source). Given the variety of approaches toward measuring the heat, the explanatory theory of simple measurement error has become untenable. While there has certainly been some sloppy work, much of the work in measuring the heat has been by experts in such measurements, and they have used many different methods.

So, then, is there some other explanation besides nuclear reactions? Hydrino theory does provide two possible routes to explain the energy: one would be the formation of hydrinos, expected to be, through Mills' theory, highly exothermic; it's a non-nuclear explanation. However, in theory, again, hydrinos would be like muons, because of the reduced orbits, and might catalyze fusion as muons do. But accepting hydrino theory turns on its head more accepted physics than the other cold fusion theories do; some of them, though still unsupported by demonstrated experimental predictions, don't require any new physics at all. (There is no new physics, to my knowledge, in Takahashi's Tetrahedral Symmetric Condensate theory, and the problem with its acceptance isn't the supposed unlikeliness of quad fusion -- that's an error based on the assumptions of plasma physics where nuclei are not confined, and four deuterons is simply two deuterium molecules assuming a favored tetrahedral arrangement if such are confined cubically -- rather, it is that there seems to be less effect from the hot alphas predicted; but I've been unable to find any clear source on that. There are hot alphas, that's known, and some of the effects are known, but people in the field seem to think, not enough.)

A true skeptical approach would avoid acceptance of theories that are not solidly supported by ample accurate prediction from them, and this would include the continued acceptance of theories that fail to predict behavior under new circumstances, not previously tested. It doesn't mean that one throws out the old theories; we did not throw out Newton's equations of motion because they were found not to apply under relativistic conditions. A true skeptic would be skeptical of all impossibility statements. Which doesn't mean that he rushes out and invests in BlackLight Power. The skeptic remains skeptical.

No theory is "scientific" if it cannot be falsified, and theories cannot be falsified if contrary evidence is discarded because it contradicts the theory!

The pseudoskeptics on Wikipedia mistook, and not beginning with me, attempts to include reliably sourced information that implied possible error in the "accepted facts about cold fusion" as pushing a fringe POV. Had these been attempts to assert the reality of cold fusion, the resistance and associated skepticism would have been quite appropriate. But they were not; rather, they were simply attempts to balance the article based on what is in reliable source. It came to the point that ordinary reliable source was being rejected because of the identity of authors (ignoring the implications of a reputable, independent publisher) and the supposed contradiction of implied theories, rejected by the "mainstream," but there is no mainstream as a coherent entity, there is only a collection of decisions made by editors and reviewers at peer-reviewed publications, or occasionally by review boards the like. And a large body of diffuse opinion, largely based on what is in media reports, and which we cannot really call "scientific."

Arguments that made some sense with, say, homeopathy, i.e., that isolated peer-reviewed publications didn't represent mainstream acceptance, were applied, explicitly, to cold fusion during the RfAr, it's in the evidence of Enric Naval that was cited as proof of my "tendentious editing." Enric's evidence, if one tracked it down through the links, presented some numbers about the proportion of peer-reviewed papers that were favorable or unfavorable to cold fusion, making it look like most papers were unfavorable. That was the opposite of the truth; the bibliography cited classifies papers as positive, negative, and neutral. In 1989, there were twice as many negative papers as positive, but it evened out in 1990, and every year after that, there were more positive papers than negative. What Enric did was to present the data as the numbers of positive papers compared to the total. Implying, then, that there were more negative than positive, by not mentioning "neutral." The excluded middle. If he was aware that he was doing that, he was a liar, it's quite possible to lie with true statements, because the essence of "lie" is intention to deceive.

Because the belief is common that cold fusion was rejected, my guess is that arbitrators, looking at Enric's evidence, didn't check the sources, because those numbers would confirm the belief, and they discounted my explanations either because they had come to believe I was tendentious and probably not worth checking out, or they simply didn't read them, which would have been understandable; in this case, though, I know that some arbitrators did read, so.... why didn't they tell the others?

I've left Wikipedia because of the failure of the best editors to defend what I was doing, not because of the jerks. Without that defense, I had no more reason to expose myself to the jerks in that environment. I rather doubt that conditions will be significantly better in three months.... but I could be wrong.

(The bibliography is the Dieter Britz bibliography. Jed Rothwell has done a detailed analysis of that bibliography, I cited it in quite a few places, it's whitelisted and very useful. He contests some of the neutral classifications as actually being positive; Britz was looking from a particular perspective, Rothwell claims. But, in any case, positive peer-reviewed papers, even as classified by Britz, now greatly outnumber negative ones, and recent publications have been almost entirely positive, and though the numbers greatly declined, in recent years they have been on the upswing, plus there have been some major publication events, such as the American Chemical Society's peer-reviewed Low Energy Nuclear Reactions Sourcebook, published by Oxford University Press, 2008, which was discussed extensively on the Reliable Source Noticeboard, pretty roundly ignored by the Cab editors that ArbComm turned the cold fusion article over to. The discussion was just archived.... The book is cllearly RS, contains quite a few reviews of the field, so it's peer-reviewed secondary source, recent, independently published, all the goodies, supposedly golden. And Enric dismissed it on RSN with "Hate to rain on your parade, but cold fusion is pathological science."

At least he didn't say "pseudoscience." But I'm not sure that "pathological" is better. It implies that anyone who gives any of it any credence is sick, deluded, or worse, quite possibly engaged in fraud.

Because he says so. Mathsci could remedy this. He could decide to check out the sources, instead of relying on math based on old accepted assumptions for his understanding of a physical sciences, and start to edit the article to conform to sources and guidelines. The error of failing to investigate the physical evidence, or, worse, rejecting it because one has a satisfying theory, is a very old one. We could call it pseudoscience, though, perhaps, it's pre-science.

There are people who believe or strongly suspect that low energy nuclear reactions are taking place. What's the evidence on which they base this? The pseudoskeptics ascribe it all to wishful thinking, hopes that the world's energy problems could be solved, or, worse, greed for fame or power. But ... is there any evidence, some small voice must be saying?

(I have no opinion that cold fusion will ever be a practical energy source, and that possibility has nothing to do with the science of low-energy nuclear reactions. The "brew me two cups of tea" argument is utterly unscientific. By the way, it used to be "one cup of tea" (Richard Garwin), but perhaps he's realized that they are getting close to one cup, he'd better up it some.

For Wikipedia, what evidence exists that is documented in reliable source? Especially in peer-reviewed secondary source? *All* that evidence should be mentioned somewhere on Wikipedia, not in redundant detail, but in substance. It's been excluded; Wikipedia did not invent this exclusion, but it need not maintain it, and it has been. The world has been moving on, the sources no longer represent the views that were prominent twenty years ago, there was a very visible shift in 2004. As I've written, the overall balance may not have shifted toward acceptance, but we don't actually know. Compared to the positive, there is very little recent negative source. Were there no significant positive source, that would be one thing, but ... there is plenty.

Against this, Mathsci has only his belief that he helped to ban a "disruptive editor." He's never engaged in any serious conversation on the topic. It's pretty obvious what is going on. The usual.

Posted by: Abd

Where? Mathsci wrote the article and categorized it as "Fringe science," which seems to be correct. However, a few days ago he http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Einstein%E2%80%93Cartan%E2%80%93Evans_theory&diff=315044574&oldid=309506024, with no explanation at all, and no citation.

I think that Mathsci might mean that the theory has been conclusively rejected, in his opinion, or in the opinion of some source, but that alone, as noted by others here, doesn't make something "pseudoscience." Errors in theories might be corrected, after all, and refutations can contain errors as well. "Fringe" seems reasonable from the sources in the article, but I haven't checked them in detail. The editorial cited is evidence of "fringe," not of "pseudoscience." "Pseudoscience" is essentially an insult to all who might have worked on with theory or who might try to fix it.

The two categories are contradictory. One or the other. I had little problem with the "Fringe science" tag on cold fusion, because it was arguable, even though I'd have moved more toward insisting on source for it. "Pseudoscience" wasn't arguable, even though some used that word in the RfAr.

Posted by: Cock-up-over-conspiracy

The "Pseudoscience" tag is the 'starched' sock under the bed of skeptic wankers ... and the Pee-dia is full of them masturbating furiously over it.

I never fully understood why the skeptics got such a boner over the Cold Fusion debacle. It is physics, for god sakes.

I can understand why the real guys with the big funding might become nervous and fiddle with their results to sink it ... but why all the 'Hot Fusion Fan Boys' attention? It is not as if it is the coolest thing to align one's self with. I suspect it was just a orchestrated release of a lot of pent up frustrations leading up to a gang banging of poor old Stanley and Martin.

If I could be bothered, I would do a cartoon of Laurel and Hardy with a bubble above Ollie's head saying, "That's another fine mess you got me into". But if it is going to be censored again by Pee-dia followers ... what is the point?

Posted by: gomi

When will you Wikipidiots get through your thick, numb skulls that encyclopedias should be full of settled science, and settled history, and biographies of long-dead people, and basically the safe and sane middle of the knowledge space? If you want to go on about Cold Fusion or Animal Rights or Chronic Epstein-Barr Virus Syndrome or crap like that, go start your own website, or read science journals or something else. This is why Wikipedia is a pile of crap -- it's a billboard for every loony tune with an axe to grind, whether it is labeling historical figures anti-semitic or crusading against (or for) abortion or Irish nationalism. Get a grip! Arghh!

Posted by: Abd

Maybe that's your Wikipedia, it isn't the Wikipedia of most editors nor the Wikipedia of the public nor the Wikipedia of Jimbo Wales. I can say that what I expect using Wikipedia is access to knowledge, not editor's opinions about what is safe and "settled." Lots of really wrong stuff has been considered settled, and if we have reliable source that it's wrong, should we continue to present it as if it were settled, because the error was accepted for a time, excluding what is in reliable source?

Actually, I don't mind editor's opinions, if they aren't excluding knowledge, but providing access to it. Used to be, on controversial subjects where I actually had a need to know, I could find links to sites that presented knowledgeable opinion and discussion of the controversies, because some editor thought these external links were useful, and they were useful in spades, I learned much more there than I could have learned on Wikipedia. Lots of those have been removed because someone objected to "fringe opinion" or "advertising" or some other bullshit. Sure. Fringe opinion. As long as it's clear that it's fringe, the facts found about it in reliable source are "knowledge," and the slogan is not the "sum of all human knowledge that has been considered safe and settled," but simply, "the sum of all human knowledge." And, guess what? Some knowledge is new. It only takes a short time, as little as a year or so, sometimes, for new stuff to make it into high quality reliable source. Whatever it takes, that's what we should follow. RS. Not opinions about what is "new" or "settled" or "fringe" or "pseudoscience" or "whacko spaghettio."

Posted by: Grep

In short, it's the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

Posted by: Somey

Who cares about my "experience of science articles"? The simple fact is, if I type the words "Oppenheimer–Phillips process" into just about any crawling search engine you can name, the Wikipedia article comes up first. Whether or not you consider it to be a "stub" is beside the point - anyone interested in that particular subject is probably going to read that thing, so whatever is in it should be at least moderately accurate, no? And telling people to "please move on" is exactly the sort of thing an agenda-driven POV pusher would say, isn't it?


Probably so. Personally, I don't have a problem with the concept of an encyclopedia that changes in rapid response to new ideas/theories/events/information, etc. - in fact, if done right, it would be a very nice thing to have. But "doing it right" would cost too much, and unfortunately, it looks like nobody's going to want to pay for something like that as long as Wikipedia is around.

Posted by: Chindog

What? You "left" Wikipedia because you were (and still are) banned by Arbcom for 3 months and banned from cold fusion for 12 months, for disruption and editing contrary to (and perhaps failing to understand) WP's RS and weight policies. You have no rights to edit. You didn't leave, you were kicked out. Let's at least be clear on that.

Posted by: Moulton

If I were younger, more energetic, and considerably more voluble, I might go on at length about pseudoboredom and pseudorama. But as there is plenty of evidence for that to be found above, I'll just let it slide for now.

Posted by: Cock-up-over-conspiracy

But I heard that the Cold Fusion topic is going to help the starving young girl in Africa ... for whom the Wikipedia is really for according to Jimbo ... save the world with its entire sum of all the knowledge in the world about it !!! (Except how to actually do it reproducibly, of course).

I know nothing about the science of cold fusion but the sociology of the science of cold fusion certainly was interesting and valid enough in its own right. Citable papers et al.

The hullabaloo is nothing new. They same old fart bags have been going at it in basically the same social dynamics since ... oh, at least Bessler's Wheel. And probably event before. Cro-magnons arguing that 'evry ful knos' a tree could not roll up a hill even after they invented the wheel.

But then that would just be more pseudoreviewia too ...

Can the admins split and merge the cold fusion stuff? We seem to have lost JzG somewhere in the calorimeter.

Posted by: Abd

This is an assumption of impossibility or impracticality based on lack of contrary experience. Very common, and it's a useful operating assumption as long as it doesn't become a knee-jerk rejection of other possibilities.

The hit-or-miss process that developed Wikipedia's effective structure, as could be expected, did quite a good job, considering; it's my view that it merely needs tweaking; but the consequences of the tweaks would be huge.

First of all, what does the "sum of all human knowledge mean." I believe that much inappropriate material gets inserted because of a natural understanding that "sum" means "all-inclusive." In Arizona, were Wikipedia selling something, that would be consumer fraud, because the consumer fraud law in Arizona prohibits misleading advertising, even if the deception isn't intended, but is perhaps based on accidental meanings of worlds. Wikipedia would be required to explain that "sum" means "summary." And the slogan should probably use that word. "Summary" implies omission. What is omitted?

In short, what is omitted is what is not "notable." It could be argued that anything noticed is notable, which would give us a very expansive definition: if one person acknowledges the knowledge of another, that's notice, and thus the knowledge is notable. But WP means something much more restricted. "Notable" means noticed in what is defined as Reliable Source. Reliable source may differ by field.

So let's assume a definition of reliable source. It doesn't mean "reliable" in the ordinary sense. Reliable sources can be very unreliable in the ordinary sense. It's really a notability standard; WP depends on the economic or related incentives of publishers (related, such as maintenance of reputation) to make decisions about what potential buyers of their product want to read about. They won't spend money publishing something that isn't "notable" in a broad sense, that is, that has no market. We exclude from "reliable source" publishers that aren't independent, except for certain narrow purposes. Thus an organization that specializes in, say, a fringe science, may indeed fund a publication, but only to promote the fringe idea. Likewise a business may publish books, etc., about the business itself or its purposes. WP looks for independence of the publisher.

If something appears in reliable source, it belongs in the full project. How it is presented is another issue, covered by neutrality guidelines. But true exclusion is improper, and probably a sign of bias.

When something found in reliable source is excluded, this creates a motive for those with a POV supported by that source to "push" for inclusion, and when the POV is fringe, this push is easily seen as disruptive. It isn't, in a mature system, it would be functional behavior, and the issue would be how to channel the energy productively so that the reliably sourced information is included without unbalancing articles. That requires process and structure that hasn't properly been built, so implementation of this -- it's not absent, merely very unreliable and inefficient -- is hit or miss. Often miss, when there is a strong majority POV-pushing faction which sees any information that might imply a contradiction to their POV as violating WP:UNDUE.

Note that the contradiction is synthesized, generally. Where contradiction is asserted in reliable source, the solution is easy, for a reliable source asserting contradiction between a primary source or low-level secondary source is a higher-level secondary source, usable for balancing. But what happens in the Fringe wars is that the majority claims that such secondary sources are missing because "it's obvious," or "nobody bothers to refute this tripe." In the absence of reliable secondary source asserting that, this is clearly OR and synthesis, and the only reason the argument survives is that enough editors buy it and support it that it can prevail. If it prevails, however, it creates an unstable situation, guaranteeing continual disruption, and banning editors who push the minority POV won't solve the problem, if the fringe views are notable. By definition, there are plenty of them! Ban one, another will take his or her place.

Instead, once we understand that existence in reliable source doesn't guarantee "reliability," but only notability, editors can negotiate consensus on how allegedly fringe views are incorporated. As Jimbo pointed out long ago, those who hold fringe ideas generally know that they are fringe, or at least that the perception is widespread that the ideas are fringe, and they will not oppose appropriate framing of text. (Cold fusion points out an unusual case, where there is an apparent contradiction between "widespread opinion among scientists" and what is actually shown where some formal process is followed. But I've seen no example where supporters of inclusion of cold fusion evidence tendentiously opposed inoffensive framing that this evidence was "not accepted by mainstream scientists," even without a source for that.)

Appropriate "Majority POV-pushing" insists on the inclusion of sources which appear to support the majority POV, it only becomes inappropriate when it seeks to exclude reliably sourced material on the grounds of "undue weight," instead of balancing it, when it refuses to engage in content dispute resolution "because it is a waste of time, arguing over this obvious nonsense." Note that "engage" only requires one editor, not every member of the majority. One editor who understands or accepts the majority POV and who is willing to discuss it, in good faith, with the "minority POV-pusher(s)."

What I've seen come out of these discussions is text that doesn't violate WP:UNDUE, that satisfies both the majority POV-pushers, neutral editors, and minority POV-pushers, at least among those who participated or who observed the discussion and accepted it. The only instability with such text, when incorporated, comes from those who did not participate, who see text they don't like, and try to remove it. Where enough editors who did participate are watching sufficiently, these removals typically don't last long, and they seem to decline with time.

The article on cold fusion has problems, still, that come from a dual and contradictory impression that the article creates. Most editors not experienced with the topic probably see the article as biased in favor of cold fusion, there was plenty of opinion expressed like that in the RfAr. Those who are familiar with the literature on cold fusion mostly appear to see the article as massively biased against cold fusion, there are few exceptions. When it comes down to individual decisions, however, where enough evidence is presented, neutral editors seem to support the use of sources that support cold fusion, i.e., that present evidence easily usable to support the hypothesis of low energy nuclear reactions, even as they, at the same time, give opinions like "of course, cold fusion is totally bogus, ... but this is a reliable source." They are judging by the publisher and the nature of the material; this was seen at RSN in consideration of the American Chemical Society Low Energy Nuclear Reactions Sourcebook, which was originally framed as being a set of conference papers, which it wasn't. It was peer-reviewed, explicitly, and published by Oxford University Press; both the series "publisher" -- the ACS -- and the actual publisher, OUP, being mainstream organizations.

That book contains a series of reviews of the field, or aspects of the field, that, if used in the article, would make for an article easily seen by those who haven't read it as drastically biased in favor of cold fusion. And there is no contrary peer-reviewed secondary source. I've looked at old p.r. secondary source on cold fusion -- there is very little -- and it was far more supportive than the general opinion among "scientists." http://arxiv1.library.cornell.edu/vc/nucl-th/papers/0303/0303057v1.pdf, (and http://www.springerlink.com/content/q001716q11254627/), I only found after I was banned, or I'd have been using it as a source for "proposed explanations," because it covered, in detail, what had been proposed as of 1994. It treated the experimental data still standing as of its publication as worthy of consideration, and unexplained by any theory that had been verified. Which was the actual situation. And perhaps still is.

Posted by: gomi

No, it's the free pile of half-incorrect pseudo-information that is almost but not entirely unlike an encyclopedia, that anyone who doesn't run up against the random biases of the entrenched cabal can edit. To quote T.S. Eliot: "Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?" I might paraphrase "Where is the encyclopedia we have lost in Wikipedia?"

Posted by: Abd

The "saving the world" idea would have to do with the effect of easy access to knowledge. I believe the reliability problem for Wikipedia could be solved, but it would take serious and deeply thoughtful consideration, and WP processes are inadequate for this. There's the rub.
Even better, a whole book on it, written by a sociologist, published by Rutgers University Press. Academic source, excellent: Simon, Undead Science. This book has been used by the skeptics for quotes like "cold fusion was rejected," but material from it in the other direction has been rejected, with comments like "Simon wasn't a physicist, he was gullible."
The problem can't be solved with admin tools, unless they are used to enforce behavioral restrictions, and, unfortunately, that's unreliable. The behavior restricted tends to be "fringe POV-pushing," which is obviously based on a content judgment! -- unless it is accompanied by edit warring, tendentious assertion of unsourced material, etc. I've written that the most dangerous kind of POV-pushing is Majority POV-pushing, because it is more difficult to recognize. Minority POV-pushing is much easier to handle, if it involves behavioral violations. If it doesn't, the solution is not prevention but incorporation though consensus development. Unfortunately, there is a very serious warping of behavioral standards introduced with the concept of "Civil POV-pushing." In other words, assertion of a POV that involves no violation of behavioral guidelines.

Rather obviously, "fighting" this involves the use of admin tools based on content judgments, and this, then, explains the flap over WMC's history, and, as well, JzG's and, underneath and overarching, because of his level of access and relative immunity to criticism, Raul654. The essay, "Civil POV-pushing" was written by Raul. Highly dangerous, with realized and active harm. Following it generates active sockmasters, with tremendous long-term disruption involved, and thus a need for more administrators like Raul654, to enforce the "bans" that he himself creates by blocking for POV.

Posted by: Grep

Actually, I think we're in agreement here ...

Posted by: Abd

It's not either/or, Chindog, in spite of your barking. Quite some time before the ArbComm decision was final, and at a point where a site-ban wasn't passing, as I recall, I asked ArbComm to address the substance of the cabal allegations, not the mere impression from the word; there was acknowledgment from some arbitrators that there was, indeed, some substance, but that, "of course, there isn't a cabal, it only looks that way." What I wrote was that if, as I had defined it, there was no cabal, they wouldn't need to ban me, I'd leave, because it would then be obvious that I was, indeed, disruptive, if I was upsetting so many "neutral" editors!

There was no evidence given that supported the site ban; it wasn't on the table until the very end, when a comment I made about what I'd learned triggered some rather extreme responses. The only finding that was really relevant was the finding on "tendentious editing," which was itself based on evidence provided by Enric Naval, accepted without explanation, when that "evidence" was actually a contradiction of ArbComm's Fringe Science ruling. I pointed out the contradiction, no response. So what the site ban "means" is unclear, as to judgment of my work. On the other hand, it has a very clear meaning to me: what I was doing, which was, long-term, promoting the negotiation of consensus (which necessarily involves substnatial discussion when there is deep dispute) and challenging administrative abuse, and successfully, wasn't welcome.

Further, the respite provided by the block led me to re-examine my entire involvement with Wikipedia, and to conclude that whatever work I had to do there was done, and that there were more valuable things to do with my time. My involvement with Wikipedia will continue, but off-wiki, and what I write here is not the core of it, this is merely a public place to explore certain issues with possible notice by some influential editors, including arbitrators. Maybe it will do some good, maybe not.

I was not "kicked out." That would be an indef ban. Very much, ArbComm would not have accepted that, see Newyorkbrad's comments when he voted for the 3-month ban. Note, as well, that the arbitrator who was most familiar with the case and the evidence, as the "drafting arbitrator," bainer, didn't vote on the final ban, perhaps because his positions were generally rejected. What we got was a decision by arbitrators mostly responding based on knee-jerk views of the evidence, very common. What should have been a sign to the arbitrators was the positions of bainer and Carcharoth. I didn't agree with everything bainer drafted, but it was all decent and quite acceptable; in fact, it looked like a victory, and the Cab was complaining vociferously and extensively.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William_M._Connolley/Workshop&oldid=311599558#Proposals_by_User:Stephen_Bain. From prior cases, I assumed that the drafting arbitrator had support from the mailing list, that his views were likely to represent a rough consensus already. That was obviously not the case, and the tide turned.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William_M._Connolley/Proposed_decision#Abd_tendentious_editingThe arbitrators who obviously spent the most time with the evidence opposed that. Again, that's a clue.

As well, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William_M._Connolley/Proposed_decision#Abd_banned_from_cold_fusion_article and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William_M._Connolley/Proposed_decision#Abd_banned_for_four_weeks That wasn't passing! But then, suddenly, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William_M._Connolley/Proposed_decision#Abd_banned_for_3_months quickly passed! What happened? Well the voters say.

What they saw, in summary, was that I would continue what I'd been doing, though under the guidance of a mentor chosen by ArbComm. Given that they saw my activities as disruptive, they -- correctly -- feared that it would continue, and were unwilling to trust a mentor (most of these had voted against mentorship because they had a firm belief that mentorship doesn't work). See, when I communicate one to one, I can be quite persuasive, with someone neutral. The dysfunction noted -- and accepted by me -- has to do with communicating simultaneously to people in different positions, as well as with those who are fully committed to an untenable position; the latter often detest my writing, whether it is brief or long, and I've seen this in more than twenty years of on-line experience.

It's not about mere opposition, because I have formed cooperative relationships with some of those who have very strongly opposed my positions. It's about the old problem Socrates faced: people unwilling to examine the basis of their own assumptions.

The decision of ArbComm was not surprising, given what they were presented. From RfAr/Abd and JzG, I had not expected that the Cab would pile in as they did, exposing themselves as much as they did. I did not anticipate the effect of as many as two dozen editors expressing very strong assumptions of bad faith and distorted evidence, because this had been mostly missing from the first RfAr. My response to it was thus unbalanced, I wasn't prepared for that. In hindsight, sure, it should have been an anticipated contingency. On the other hand, this RfAr would be a goldmine for those who want to pursue other cases against some of these editors, they fully play their hand, and it is a very ugly one. Raul654 essentially mooned the jury.

But it's not my problem any more. I have other fish to fry, much tastier ones. There are many very fine people editing Wikipedia, but, touch some hot articles, and one meets far too many of the other kind, and there is far too little restraint, far too little understanding of the importance of consensus and too much insistence on individual and partisan interpretations of the guidelines. Carcharoth said it, in fact, and clearly understands. But even Carcharoth's views, I suspect, were contaminated by the content judgment about cold fusion. As has happened before, ArbComm was unable to avoid making a content decision, because a content decision underlies a vague decision about "tendentious editing."

I was actually doing the opposite, too much the opposite, and that was covered in my response to Carcharoth that triggered the immediate stronger ban. I was being patient; but also not stopping discussion, so it easily looked like I was discussing tendentiously, and then every edit was viewed through that lens.

Same old same old. I'll stick with what I wrote. The problem isn't the bad guys, the problem isn't even the distracted and lazy arbitrators making knee-jerk assumptions and reacting based on them. As always, the problem is us, by which I mean those who can see more than the usual. We give up, we don't bother to stand for what we know and can see, we don't take the risks of asserting what we know, from long experience with the futility of it. My continued task is enabling those who can see to become effective, more efficient. This is what I was doing before Wikipedia, and my editing WP actually inhibited it, by taking up so much time. That's gone now. I'll put some effort into organizing the off-wiki structures that are needed to be able to shift the status quo; it will either be picked up by others or not. It's the same everywhere. You scatter seeds, you know not which ones will germinate.

Posted by: Cock-up-over-conspiracy

And that is precisely the attitude - albeit it noble and benign - that will most certainly have you ejected from the Pee-dia's torsion field. We cant risk excellence and accuity of which we are ignorant, and you cant challenge the rule of turgid mediocrity. Didn't you know, the Emperors are dressed in the Sum of All Human Knowledge.

God damn, the Wikipedia does not even have "naive" sociologists making editorial policy and content decisions ... because that is what they are ... they have boy scout leaders.

Thanks, I had no idea Bart Simon's paper made it into a book. I read it when it was just an unpublished paper and he struck me as being very sympathetic and insightful.

Posted by: Abd

He harasses others and I smell the blood. He's at it again now, repeating arguments from a year ago that were rejected then, but he's good at getting the mob fired up with a large pile of lies, because they sound true if one doesn't look closely, and I was often the only uninvolved editor who actually looked. That, of course, made me involved. Knowledge has that effect.... I'll start a new thread for this.

I emailed JzG as described above, and he responded well. It seems that Chindog prefers only the negative stories. But he's seriously attached about cold fusion, and doesn't seem to notice when what he writes about it and about editorial behavior around it is thoroughly refuted and rejected in community discussions. He just repeats the same stuff later to a new audience.

He's no longer an admin, he resigned, citing me. I was on a three month block at the time, but he had to have someone to blame.... perish the thought that it might be his own behavior causing him difficulties.