Talk:ViXra

NPOV tag

If the person who added the NPOV tag would kindly explain what they think is not neutral about the article, I'll fix it. Otherwise, I'll remove the tag. SETIGuy (talk) 23:40, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Hello! I was the guy who added the NPOV tag, and I apologize for not stating my reasons. viXra is a brewery for all kinds of non-standard theories. A casual reader might get the idea that ViXra is an eprint archive set in proper scientific spirit, which it is not. viXra does not have any kind of peer review. And a lot of established scientists might not consider the creators of viXra as "scientists". You need to stress on these points. And there are factual errors in the article. arXiv is not owned by Cornell, it just happens to be funded (and hosted) by Cornell. Hope I made myself clear to you! Regards! — Fιηεmαηη ^[talk] 07:34, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I thought I had made it clear with the last sentence that content with little or no scientific value could be found on vixra, but I don't think that it would be appropriate to discuss the credentials of either the founders of vixra or the founders of arxiv. Maybe I should remove the word scientist from descriptions of either. I'm not sure that your disapproval of vixra means that the article doesn't have a neutral point of view. It appears to mean that you don't have a neutral point of view. I neither approve of nor disapprove of the existence of vixra. If you'd like to add a section discussing the "proper scientific spirit" and whether allowing non-scientists to post articles is "proper scientific spirit" and the necessity of censorship to the scientific process, but I can be fairly sure that wouldn't be NPOV. SETIGuy (talk) 17:05, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi! I'm sure I am not discriminating against viXra or your article. viXra is the kind of place where you can find articles written by Jesus Christ himself! I guess it should be clearly mentioned that much of the papers in viXra is quackery than veiling it in sentences like "As such, ViXra contains many articles of debatable scientific merit." Hope you understand. — Fιηεmαηη ^(talk) 17:23, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's pretty neutral now, and the tag could be removed. As much as I'd like to open with "viXra is full of nonsense", in the same way that part of me wants to see the lede of homeopathy replaced with "Homeopathy doesn't work; there's nothing in it", we really have to try to keep an encyclopædic tone rather than polemic. bobrayner (talk) 20:46, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Good work! I have removed it. — Fιηεmαηη ^(talk) 21:49, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually I do understand your prejudice against an open archive that allows anyone to publish anything and claim it is science. I'm a scientist after all, so to some extent I share it. But I also understand the need to have relatively permanent archives with lower standards. The fact that viXra contains unscientific jibberish does not mean that the archive serves no purpose or that it contains nothing of scientific value. Saying that it contains nothing of value would not be NPOV. It might even be untrue. SETIGuy (talk) 00:52, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Prejudice? To me an open archive that allows anyone to publish anything and claim it is science is nothing but a storage service of pdf files. I don't understand how it is any different from Rapidshare or Megaupload. Would you consider Rapidshare as an alternative to arXiv? In that sense yeah, I am prejudiced! That said, I am not in for a flame war regarding this. Regards! — Fιηεmαηη ^(talk) 01:04, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I hope that some day, assuming you stay in the sciences, you will understand the difference between arXiv, viXra, and Rapidshare and why each is different, necessary and not a substitute for any of the others. SETIGuy (talk) 01:49, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I am the creator of viXra and I just saw this article. I won't comment on it directly because it should remain unbiased, but I have to comment on some of the comments made here by Finemann.

"viXra is a brewery for all kinds of non-standard theories" - thank you this is a great compliment, I hope it is seen that way. I only claim that it is open and without restrictions to authors whose purpose is to publish their scientific theories, standard or non-standard. Many of the greatest ideas in science started off as non-standard in their time.

"viXra does not have any kind of peer review", - neither does arXiv which just has an endorsement policy and moderation. Once endorsed an author can submit at will so individual papers are not being reviewed at all. There is also a moderation policy that may lead to articles being moved to other categories. I don't like these policies but they are not any kind of peer-review and that is a good thing because it is not the purpose of an eprint archive to carry out peer review. That is what journals are for. The eprint archive is there mainly to enable rapid circulation before peer-review. Many of the articles in viXra have passed peer-review, look in the comments where the journal reference is sometimes mentioned. Traditional peer-review is also just one step in the long process of scientific review that eventually leads to a scientific consensus.

"a lot of established scientists might not consider the creators of viXra as "scientists"" - I don't know what this personal insult is based on. I don't claim to be well-known as a scientist but I do have a PhD in physics. I have also published papers on physics and mathematics in peer reviewed journals. I even won a fourth prize in a recent FQXi essay contest that was judged by an expert panel of scientists. By the way I am also endorsed for submissions to arXiv. These are minor achievements perhaps, but which part of this sounds like I would not be considered as a scientist? If you think that many scientists would label me a non-scientist because I run an archive with an open submission policy then I think you misjudge them. Weburbia (talk) 20:04, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

• Fortunately this page has escaped deletion. If you intend to edit it please read the discussion page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/ViXra which has some reliable references that could be used. Please keep the page balanced. I wont edit the article myself due to conflict of interest. Weburbia (talk) 09:16, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
• The adminstrators comment at the top of the discussion page for the deletion is a complete distortion of the truth. There was no agreement that viXra is a site of dubious scientific quality as claimed. There were only two supporters of the deletion with five against (not counting myself) Weburbia (talk) 09:16, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
• The discussion page for the deletion has now been blanked because I made a compliant about the libellous and completely unjustifiable comment left by the administrator who closed the discussion. Weburbia (talk) 08:50, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
  • The closing comment looked quite reasonable to me. You should be careful when throwing around words like "libellous" so frequently - other editors might get the impression that you intend to achieve changes through legal threats that couldn't be achieved through discussion and reasoning; if that happened, you'd probably get swiftly blocked. bobrayner (talk) 21:33, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
    • The Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Libel makes it clear that an email should be sent if there is anything libellous. That is all I have done. I have not done anything remotely similar to threatening anyone with legal action. You are the one who should be careful what you say. The comment was not "reasonable" (It can still be seen using the history page for the AfD) It was clearly in contradiction of what was said on the discussion page and was an unwarranted criticism of viXra that amounted to libel. If you think it was reasonable then explain what you mean and I will defend it here. I was not able to do that on the AfD because it was closed to edits so I had no choice to complain about it. I tried to use "discussion and reason" by posting on the administrators own talk page but his idea of discussion was not to respond in any way. Weburbia (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:22, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

Creation of a new page about figshare

I suggest the creation of a new page about figshare , but I would be completely unable to write it.

I apologize if this is not the right place to make such a suggestion. I didn't know where to make it.

Milolance (talk) 11:06, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Reception?

There should be some information about how this project has been received by the academic community. Has it proved popular? Do researchers generally consider it a valuable resource? Is it experiencing growth or stagnation? Is the site more popular in particular fields of research? Have there been any papers published on viXra that have been regarded as especially significant or important? And so on... Right now the article mainly describes the purpose of the site, but does not describe how it has actually turned out. 129.199.99.140 \(talk) 09:34, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

This may not be possible, as it has not really been mentioned in any reliable sources outside of those already used in the article. If you manage to find any post them here and we can take a look. a13ean (talk) 14:47, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

If that's true, then perhaps this article does not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. From WP:NOT#INTERNET, I quote: "Wikipedia articles should not exist only to describe the nature, appearance or services a website offers, but should describe the site in an encyclopedic manner, offering detail on a website's achievements, impact or historical significance." See also WP:WEBCRIT. I have added a notability template. 129.199.224.149 (talk) 22:14, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

It may be worth nominating it for deletion again as the previous AfD was inconclusive. The lack of subsequent RS on the subject may play a role. a13ean (talk) 23:37, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

References to news sources that reported the initial setup of viXra are

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/39845 Fledgling site challenges arXiv server (Physics World August 2009 p9) http://physicsworld.com/blog/2009/07/what_is_arxiv_backwards.html http://m.publico.es/240864 article in Spanish Newspaper publico 25 July 2009 http://blogs.nature.com/news/2009/07/whats_arxiv_spelled_backwards.html A reliable reference to the statement that viXra contains articles of dubious merit is http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.0788 , Mike Duff, Contribution to the Special Issue of Foundations of Physics: "Forty Years Of String Theory: Reflecting On the Foundations"

Please be sure to apply the same standards to all the other e-print archives in Wikipedia.Weburbia (talk) 20:22, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

The following looks more relevant, but unfortunately it does not yet seem to be reliably published: Kelk, David; Devine, David (2012), A Scienceographic Comparison of Physics Papers from the arXiv and viXra Archives, arXiv:1211.1036. Perhaps worth keeping an eye on, in case it achieves reliable publication in future. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:24, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Another source is "Peer‐to‐peer Review and the Future of Scholarly Authority", K Fitzpatrick is the journal "Social Epistemology" Volume 24, Issue 3, 2010, published by Routledge. Which says "It is worth noting the challenge posed to this already quite open system by a new pre‐print server named viXra, which removes any restrictions on the kinds of papers that can be uploaded" The same author noted viXra in her book "Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy"

It should be pointed out that sources do not have to be cited in the article to support notability. It is sufficient that they exist. I have given six independent reliable sources. There is no number given for the number of sources or other factors that justify notability in Wikipedia but people can compare this with other articles in Wikipedia in the same categories which are not being threatened with deletion.Weburbia (talk) 19:19, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

An anonymous user has added a claim that "Most scientists believe that some of the papers uploaded to viXra contain pseudo-science and do not contribute to further the knowledge in the respective fields." This would be equally true, irrelevant and unsupported by reliable sources if it were said of arXiv and many other repositories instead of viXra. It does not reflect well on wikipedia that this unbalanced statement has been allowed to stand. Weburbia (talk) 19:18, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

For values of "allowed to stand" that include "reverted by the next day", you mean? Anyway, it's gone now. As you could have accomplished yourself. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:44, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you David. I have to steadfastly avoid doing any editing myself on the article because any edit I make would allow the detractors to claim that the page is not neutral due to my conflict of interest. Weburbia (talk) 09:54, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Here is one further reference to viXra ftom a peer reviewed paper: "Automating the Horae: Boundary-work in the age of computers" by Luis Reyes-Galindo in Social Studies of Science (Sage Journals) http://sss.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/04/25/0306312716642317.abstract Weburbia (talk) 15:44, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

There may now be others, I'm not sure if it's usable but I recently fell on this recent presentation from an Open Access publisher listing it: [1]. —PaleoNeonate – 17:17, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't think Hindawi's views on predatory and/or open access publishing are mainstream. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:34, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

The main issue with those presentation slides is that they are without context. However, that slide quotes t' Hooft, so you can infer Hodgkinson/Hindawi's view on viXra from it if you want. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:43, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

POV

I have added {{POV}} to the article as it is too positive towards ViXrA, which often contains crackpot articles, due to the inefficient moderation, . Dimension10 (talk) 10:01, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

The moderation is not "inefficient". It is the policy of viXra to accept articles without any threshold for quality as stated in the article. If you look at the history you will see that this article is closely monitored and any biased changes either way are quickly reverted. Your claim that it "often contains crackpot articles" is vague and overly negative and cannot be supported by reliable references. The POV tag should be removed.Weburbia (talk) 10:53, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

It is not vague, and I believe it is factual, but it cannot be added to the article without a reliable source that says so. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:30, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

The continued lack of new RS beyond the very few that accompanied its inception makes me think this needs to go back to AfD (or AfM to the ArXiv article). a13ean (talk) 18:45, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

The crackpot claim can be proved easily. E.g. on vixra

you find dozens of 'proofs' of famous math conjectures (Goldbach, Riemann hypothesis, twin prime conjecture), which are fairly obviously very wrong (the 'proofs', I cannot judge the conjectures since they are open). The arxiv general math section had similar problems, but it seems to have improved since the site is moderated. In vixra's psychology section I found an article claiming that plants have an aura and that it is possible to communicate with them. Maybe, but the author does not give any evidence for his/her claims. Etc, etc, what else is crackpot if not this? -- MaLeZig w/o login. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.132.179 (talk) 12:52, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

It is so vague that if you said arXiv "often contains crackpot articles" quite a few people would agree with it. Unless you can carefully define "crackpot" and quantify it there is no substantive meaning to it. In any case what you need is a quote from a reliable source and nobody has ever said any such thing outside a blog or a forum and usually under the cover of anonymity. Furthermore you are not applying the same standards to other wikipedia articles in similar categories of academic website such as Category:EPrint archives or Category:Scholarly communication or Category:Bibliographic databases. Many of these have no independent reliable references at all and less information than the viXra article. The only reason you are attacking this article is because you don't like its content, but that is not a good reason and it is NPOV. May I also suggest that you read the information on the viXra website to understand better what its purpose is. Weburbia (talk) 22:30, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

merging with the arXiv article would make no sense at all because viXra is not part of arXiv. Why would you not merge every other eprint archive with arXiv and just have a generic article about eprint archives?Weburbia (talk) 22:36, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

The few reliable sources we have on the matter indicate that viXra is only notable because it's an alternative to the ArXiv. a13ean (talk) 00:52, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

A reference to viXra in the arXiv article was recently removed. Merging viXra into arXiv will be seen as very controversial critcism and people would want to remove it. If you think it can be justified you may have to lock the arXiv article so that it can stay there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Weburbia (talk • contribs) 06:19, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Concerning the Conflict of Interest Tag

A conflict of interest tag has been placed on this page concerning myself. I would like to point out that I have always been upfront about my involvement with viXra. I have never made any edit to the viXra article even when some people suggested I do so. Neither I nor anyone else involved with viXra had any part in creating or editing the article. The guidelines at Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide encourage people with a conflict of interest to post suggestions and sources in the talk page. That is what I have been doing and it means that it is completely absurd and out of place to add a conflict of interest tag to a talk page. Please justify why this has been done or remove the tag.Weburbia (talk) 09:30, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I would also like to add that although I acknowledge a "conflict of interest" since I founded viXra.org, this does not mean that I have a financial interest, or at least not a positive one. viXra.org is not a corporation or even a non-profit organisation. It is just a website that cost money to run and that money comes out of my pocket. This is not likely to ever change. The more people that use it the more it will cost to run. The small amount of advertising on the site covers less than 10% of the cost.Weburbia (talk) 13:11, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

The tag is for the benefit of other users, so they can evaluate your comments here in light of the fact that you are personally connected to the subject of the article. Any financial details are beside the point. a13ean (talk) 17:15, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

The first thing I said on this page was "I am the creater of viXra", so the tag is unnecessary. People may interpret the tag to mean that my influence has affected the neutrality of the page. This is not the case. I have not edited it and even my suggestions for further sources have not been taken up. My only role here has been to argue against the claims for lack of "notability" and "neutral point of view" and to defend the site from the unwarranted attacks that have been made on this talk page which are not backed up by reliable sources. Weburbia (talk) 17:55, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I added the point about the finances because a lot of the wording on the "conflict of interest" page linked to in the tag is directed at people who are promoting their own commercial interests in Wikipedia. Weburbia (talk) 18:00, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

This is the first time I have seen a "conflict of interest" tag on a talk page. Also, the "autobiography" tag is irrelevant to this talk page, and so is the "Neutral point of view" tag (irrelevant). I have been in a number of discussions with some heavy duty POV pushers, two of those went to ANI. Yet there was no NPOV tag, and no "Autobiography" tag placed on the top of the article. I request rationale be provided with some specifics that justifies the unusual use of these tags (on a talk page). Where in the "conflict of interest" guideline does it say this applies to talk page. As far as I can see User:Weburbia's editing behavior has been appropriate according to the COI guideline and the talk page guideline.

I am going to quote from the COI guideline : "When advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest." Also the COI guideline states " [He] may use the article talk pages to suggest changes..."

According to this definition User:Weburbia does not appear to be a COI editor. Having a connection to the article does not seem to automatically equate with conflict of interest. This editor has made no effort to edit this article, and has appropriately participated in discussions on the talk page. Unless I am missing something? --- Steve Quinn (talk) 02:02, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

I placed this particular COI tag, which is explicitly for the case in which the user has never edited the article. The basis for the COI tag was Paul's declaration as well as the rather heated discussion at the AfD. a13ean (talk) 03:54, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

At any rate this may be a moot point -- we're now several years in and still have only the two reliable sources cited, plus some Spanish news article. I remained unconvinced that this meets notability, and will renominate for AfD when I have a chance. a13ean (talk) 03:56, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

I have provided 6 reliable sources on these pages. The criteria for notability only requires that sources exist, not that they are cited in the article. Six is much better than most other articles in Wikipedia in similar categories. You can try your AfD if you want. Last time most people responded in support of keeping it. As I said the last time, I don't personally mind if the article is on Wikipedia or not, so long as it is unbiased, which it is now. From the comments here it is clear that a few people are against it because they dont like its contents, not because of the notability criteria. Weburbia (talk) 08:31, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Keep the page

The vixra site is a significant site on the web, and that must count for something. I support the retention of its wikipedia entry, for the simple reason that it is valuable to be able to objectively compare and contrast it with that other important site, arxiv. Several of the arguments above for deletion appear personally motivated, and the reasons for deletion contrived, so may I just add that if we were to go around deleting every site that personally displeased each of us, there would not be much left. John Pons (talk) 08:15, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree completely wiht JOhn POns. I have seen also many 'crackpots' in ARXIV.ORG and their papers are not deleted even when some professionals review them and say they are wrong , keep this vixra.org page in wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.85.13.91 (talk) 10:55, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Keep the page on this very small preprint server because some other much larger preprint server doesn't filter out all its crackpots? What logical connection is there from one to the other? How does this argument rely on Wikipedia's notability policies? For that matter, at this point in time, who is even trying to delete the ViXra page? —David Eppstein (talk) 16:46, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

That would be me. I think the very few independent reliable sources do not collectively satisfy GNG. a13ean (talk) 22:50, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that vixra is simply not a sincere effort. Gibbs is only interested in providing a platform for crackpots, and if any bona fide academic takes the trouble to explain what is wrong, he will delete the comment. The goal is clearly to harm science as much as possible. It is perverse and disgusting, and does not deserve the dignity of a wikipedia entry. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:40E6:547F:2CFA:BAE1 (talk) 06:52, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank You for Article Creation

I applaud the researcher who created this vixra.org article. It shows that not all is lost to mob rule on wikipedia. Wavyinfinity (talk) 18:37, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Preprint Count

On Vixra.org the current count for articles as of November 7, 2014 is 9000. The cited source of only 4000 is off by 5000 papers. In other words the cite has more than doubled in preprint publishings in a little over 1 1/2 years.

From the viXra web site:

An alternative archive of 9000 e-prints in Science and Mathematics serving the whole scientific community.

Wavyinfinity (talk) 20:00, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't see the point in adding numbers to the article that you intend to update every single day. That's just pointless churn. Find a reliable source for updated numbers, rather than something that will be different every time you look at it. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:44, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

The current count is 36,747. That means it has grown +400% since November 2014. It is also the 7th largest preprint archive? Not sure. Philip Gibbs is not an "enemy of humanity", fyi. He found a need, and he filled that need. That's what inventors do, which are hardly enemies of humanity. Was Alfred Nobel an enemy of humanity with his invention of dynamite?Airpeka (talk) 17:52, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

The answer to your last question might be a guarded yes. After all, what is the famous prize there for but to still a bad conscience? But to call our man an inventor who filled a need is to do him way too much honour, as you will admit to yourself on ripe reflection, when the urge to win this particular argument has subsided. On whether he is an enemy of humanity, I think vixra is there to provide a cesspool for the extreme right and the religious nutcases brigade to fish in and to cherrypick contrarian positions that suit them, or just generally maintain that "the science is not settled". 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:A5A4:B63:83F4:8827 (talk) 08:10, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Notability Of Vixra Is Published On Arxiv

David Kelk and David Devine published a scholarly and scientific comparison of arXiv and viXra on the Cornell University Site in 2012.

The article published statistics related to quality standards at arXiv, like number of authors and university affiliation, length of the text, and the style, as well as the number of references and where the references are placed and presented. From the arXiv article It seems unlikely that Albert Einstein could get his special relativity published in arXiv because he was not associated with a university at the time and had no collaborators. His later work on general relativity could probably be published on arXiv because he became a university professor and had collaborators some of the leading mathematicians like Hilbert, Weyl, Noether, and Levi-Civita.

In another arXiv article G. G. Nyambuya makes reference to his previous article on viXra that was continued from Nyambuya's earlier article on arXiv and eventually printed in a peer reviewed journal.

Is Nyambuya another Einstein? We don't know yet, but if he is, then viXra gets some of the credit for allowing him to publish the disputed article arXiv didn't want.

The notability of viXra is established by it's acceptance of original work by less known authors in controversial topics that are not popular with the majority of main stream academic writers. The vast majority of scientists work in private enterprise not connected to a university, so there is no intent of arXiv to cover the entire technical community, although a large variety of journals do cover virtually every aspect of science. A lack of peer review in viXra is compensated for by allowing any reader to publish a comment about any specific article, with some general limits and a system of resolving disputes.

I would vote to keep viXra page in Wikipedia for now and under occasional review, considering that it is less notable than it might be in peer reviewed references if the conservative side of the academic community was more tolerant of new ideas. Astrojed (talk) 23:18, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

References

You do know that arXiv papers do not go through peer review (unless they are also published elsewhere) and because of that are not generally considered reliable sources, right? —David Eppstein (talk) 23:49, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

The journal reference is the most reliable one, but there is only one journal reference and that is not enough to resolve the question of notability for viXra. Moreover the journal is about Astronomy and Astrophysics, the only branches of physical science that routinely reach outside the academic circle of specialists to invite contributions from amateurs and general practitioners. I could have listed another 19 references from Doctor Nyambuya on the Research Gate web site where there is more quality control than viXra, but less quality control than arXiv, however it is not essential to the topic and does not lead to additional journal references. It is notable that Nyambuya, a black African doctor of physics educated in African universities, specializing in the topics he publishes while working without collaboration in a lesser known African university has succeeded in getting a peer reviewed journal publication with the help of arXiv, viXra, and Research Gate.

The larger issue for me is one of diversity and inclusion knocking on the door of an exclusive society. Then there is the issue of new discoveries and who gets credit for first publication. Main stream scientists have recommended to me a first publication on Research Gate with proof of origin, before submitting it for peer review. Astrojed (talk) 18:21, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Cherry picking among recent papers

A high-water mark: http://vixra.org/abs/1706.0060 - not work that will set the mathematical world on fire, but it was published in an Elsevier journal (which makes their uploading it to vixra hard to fathom)

A low-water mark: http://vixra.org/abs/1705.0384 - sets out to present a physics theory of mind but veers off into reflections on unrequited love.137.205.101.185 (talk) 12:16, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Actually, vixra has a whole bunch of Elsevier-copyrighted material on it, which surely would result in a cease and desist order if Elsevier could be bothered to know or care about the existence of this dismal repository.137.205.100.47 (talk) 16:05, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Authors are allowed to post a copy to a repository. If Elsevier is concerned about the versions that have been posted they can ask viXra to take them down.Weburbia (talk) 09:55, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Aren't viXra and Weburbia one and the same person?2A01:CB0C:56A:9700:29B4:726F:3ECF:23C9 (talk) 16:38, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

ViXra is not a person. The connection is mentioned in the box at the top of the page. I have never edited the viXra article or instructed anyone to do so. Weburbia (talk) 18:01, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

"vixra" is not a person, you say. Well, okay, actually in a legal sense it is, and it is also, by your own statement, an entity that can be asked to take contributions down, i.e. an entity capable of acting with the intelligence of a human person. Moreover, there is no question about who exactly that person might be... 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:A5A4:B63:83F4:8827 (talk) 08:04, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Did you know that about 5% of viXra submissions come from universities and other major research institutions? We have them from Cornell, MIT, Oxford University, CERN, University of Amsterdam, Princeton, Los Alamos, and even the US Navy Weburbia (talk) 09:31, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

I am a member of CERN and I find this impossible to believe, the rules behind where things are published from CERN are quite strict, and everything published by CERN is circulated among all of the relevant experiment's contributors (though admittedly for most result of course for the larger experiments the majority do not pay close attention to) and have to be approved by the experiment's publication committee, none of which would accept a pre-print to vixra. Could you point me to an example, or when you say "We have them from [...] CERN" do you actually mean "We have them from people that have some association with CERN, but are uploaded by them entirely independently from CERN with exactly no endorsement from CERN and are not actually in any way at all actually from CERN"? I have tried to search vixra for any articles from CERN (and also searched internally for any article that has been published on vixra) but I can find absolutely nothing, other than the usual crackpot nonsense that is on vixra that has no association with CERN.81.107.39.90 (talk) 03:39, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

There are three papers submitted by Stephen Reucroft. Weburbia (talk) 06:57, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps you did not understand the question. Reucroft moved from CERN to Northeastern in 1986. Vixra was founded in 2009. So Reucroft's papers cannot be an example of Vixra papers by authors from CERN. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:26, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Nevertheless he used his cern.ch email address for the submissions. Weburbia (talk) 07:37, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

This is entirely irrelevant. Claiming that a personal submission from a member of CERN with no backing (or even knowledge of) anyone else at CERN is in any way at all a submission from CERN is to put it bluntly, fraudulent. CERN has never, and never will, submitted anything to vixra and does not endorse anything on it. I imagine the case is the same for all the other institutions you have mentioned as well. 81.107.39.90 (talk) 11:11, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

So allow me to clarify, when I say that submissions come from these institutions I mean that they have been submitted with email addresses from these institutions. I am well aware that many institutions have explicitly banned academics from submitting to viXra but they dont give out email addresses to just anyone either.Weburbia (talk) 12:08, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

So in that sense, all of my submissions to arXiv count as research by Google, because I use a gmail address? Interesting point of view. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:48, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

I know people from at least one of those institutions who have e-mail accounts there ~15 years after having left. Heck, I've had a physics.such-and-such.edu account that worked for years because I took a summer job there. XOR'easter (talk) 02:50, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Quite. Gibbs, pardon me, Weburbia tries to twist the painfully obvious point that CERN would never submit anything to vixra (nor would any other reputable institution) into people who work there being banned from doing so. Of course not - anyone good enough to work at CERN simply would never want to sully themselves in such a way. He compounds it with the brash claim that having an email address associated with a good institution is itself a mark of quality ("not given out to just anyone") which again is nonsense. Anyone with any kind of career in academia at all leaves a trail of zombie email accounts that are left collecting spam. No big deal. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:A5A4:B63:83F4:8827 (talk) 07:51, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Deplorable. The Robitailles of this world.137.205.100.173 (talk) 15:34, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Brief Description

I dont edit this article because I have a conflict of interest and my edits could be used to declare the article unbalanced. However, for the information of anyone else considering making changes, the hidden brief description "Electronic e-print archive for unconventional publications" that was recently added is inaccurate. ViXra is an archive for any articles under the topic categories it provides for. There is no requirement for them to be "unconventional", some are and many are not. Weburbia (talk) 10:59, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

I fixed per your suggestion but my edit was reverted by XOR'easter. XOR'easter, would you be able to find a reliable reference indicating that vixra is specifically for unconventional eprints? Best Regards RogueTeddy (talk) 19:19, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Including "unconventional" is a (polite) way of summarizing the contents of the article, which is what a short description is supposed to do. Finding that exact word used in any specific source is not necessary. XOR'easter (talk) 19:49, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Gibbs himself has used "fringe", apparently intended complimentarily, as a description of the majority of Vixra publications: [2]. I don't think this is a reliable source but we could consider it as an alternative word to "unconventional". Per X above, though, most people would consider it less polite. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:26, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

No worries. I will accede your point that vixra is for "unconventional" eprints as I hold nowhere near the power that you folks hold on this platform. Of course, it would be useful to have a definition as to what "conventional" and "unconventional" mean respectively, as otherwise the above seems suspiciously like the use of weasel wording in order to engage in some form of point-scoring activity along the general lines of academic politics. You are both more experienced and established hands at wikipedia however so I am not really game to get involved in a protracted debate, however I do have a question. Are these three statements correct via your ambiguously worded definitions above?

• viXra hosts only "unconventional" eprints.
• arXiv hosts only "conventional" eprints.
• an eprint that is "conventional" cannot be "unconventional", and vice versa.

Best Regards RogueTeddy (talk) 21:32, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Why do you think it must be so binary? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:47, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Why do you want the brief description to be so binary? RogueTeddy, your assessment of the situation is spot on and your allusion to accepting an argument from authority looks like lost sarcasm. (Personal attack removed) Weburbia (talk) 10:58, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I have previously removed comments here describing you as an enemy of humanity or somesuch for violating WP:NPA, I hope it will not be necessary to remove your comments as well. —JBL (talk) 13:08, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't see why you would have any problem with that comment. I think I am entitled to highlight the fact that a Wikipedia admin has blatantly misrepresented what I said in a source in order to support an unbalanced edit. This is worse than the empty insults from lunatics. If you want to remove my comments go ahead, it just means that people will not have a proper understanding of what is going on here. Weburbia (talk) 13:30, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Listen, I get that the people you hang around with think it's endearing to constantly try to cry oppression about their bad ideas not immediately earning them Nobel prizes and whatnot, but whining like this about a comment that DE made in his capacity as a fellow-editor (not in his administrative capacity) is just incredibly foolish. I have removed the ridiculous personal attack from your previous comment; I assure you that nothing will be lost for other readers of this page. Feel free to try again when you have something constructive to add. --JBL (talk) 13:42, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

For the benefit of anyone who did not see the comment deleted by JBL, there was no reference to any individual and it was not in any way a personal attack on anyone, unlike JBL's comment above. Weburbia (talk) 13:58, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I sincerely doubt that. I also think that it would be impossible to reveal the true agenda behind vixra without it being misconstrued as a personal attack. Because it is very much a personal crusade, undertaken by a very specific person, to advance his very personal goals. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:A5A4:B63:83F4:8827 (talk) 07:55, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Neither the terms "unconventional" nor "fringe" are inherently insulting in my view. Paradigm shifts, for example, are unconventional by definition, but not always wrong, and fringe science just means people who are not working in the mainstream. However, it is strongly misleading and unbalanced to say that viXra is "for unconventional publications." It is for any publications. Furthermore, there is no source for this claim. It is completely untrue that I said that the majority of vixra publications are fringe, and if I had said it the meaning would not be the same. What I said in the source quoted was "If you look through the physics categories of viXra you may find that about 50% of the papers make it clear that the author does not accept the standard models of physics and is trying to find an alternative. That is a lot but it leaves another 50% who at least believe they are working within the accepted paradigm." Notice that (1) I was only talking about the physics categories, (2) 50% is not a majority, (3) I was speaking hypothetically as in "you may find." (4) I did not use the word "fringe" in this context. The article only used the word "fringe" because it was a review of a book called "Physics on the Fringe." The book does not mention viXra and no part of viXra is anywhere described as "fringe" in this review, let alone the majority as claimed above. In fact this reference (which is from a reliable peer-reviewed journal although the article began life in a blog) provides evidence against the description that you are trying to support. An accurate and balanced description might say that viXra is open for both conventional and unconventional publications Weburbia (talk) 17:20, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Description in intro sentence

@FROA$TUR: you have twice changed the description of the ViXra archive in the intro sentence to the website's own description. However, you have done this while retaining the original source citation, which, once your change is applied, no longer agrees with the text it is used to support. If you want to change the description, please find a WP:RS that supports your change. -- The Anome (talk) 18:48, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Thats precisely what my second edit did. It removed the reference. See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ViXra&oldid=1016911876. If your concern is with regards to the citation, the citation can be either removed or replaced with a citation of the website itself or another source.--FROA$TUR (talk) 18:52, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

There is no chance of elliminating a correct and well-sourced description from the lead. —JBL (talk) 19:03, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

The source does not say that viXra specialises in Fringe science. It says it allows it, which is true. It makes that distinction because I explained it to the author when he interviewed me about it.Weburbia (talk) 20:07, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Weburbia. The first sentence of this article can't be substantiated with an opinion piece. The reference violates Wikipedia:Reliable sources. The website itself makes clear its intention is to serve as a preprint service "for science, mathematics, or other scholarly areas". Whether or not some people submit crazy papers to it doesn't make it a fringe/conspiracy theory inspired preprint service as I've read plenty of crazy papers on the arXivs too. What makes it all the worse is I've read plenty of very decent papers submitted to it.--FROA$TUR (talk) 22:34, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

A website's description of itself is never the final word. The current source for the first sentence is a scholarly research publication, not an opinion piece. The current first sentence is fine as it stands. XOR'easter (talk) 23:00, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Can anyone point me to the location in the cited source that underlies the first sentence in the lead? I have only been able to find viXra being characterized as a "fringe outlet" by its inclusion in a table. —Quondum 00:15, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

The inclusion in their Table 2 seems to be enough; the later section, starting on p. 433, which discusses those sources in more detail has caveats for some (e.g., We do not know enough about Apeiron to classify it with confidence) but no such qualification for viXra. XOR'easter (talk) 00:26, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

The phrase "specializing in" carries semantics that do not seem to be supported by the source. There is a difference between "indiscriminately/predominantly hosts" and that. —Quondum 00:36, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Interesting: "Yet its most important (or sole?) accomplishment may be the critique it embodies by parodying arXiv." (Delfanti 2020, p. 268) —Quondum 01:08, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

The definition is not supported by the source

The article defines Vixra as an *"e-print archive specializing in unorthodox and fringe science."*

The source statement is quite different. It only contains this small mention of Vixra:

viXra (arXiv spelled backwards) is an electronic preprint server founded in 2005, by Phil Gibbs, a physicist. viXra has over 10,000 papers in its archive, and claims to be “truly open,”accepting all submissions except those that are “vulgar, libellous, plagiaristic or dangerously misleading.”44 viXra was founded in reaction to arXiv’s rejection of various classes of papers, has revolutionary implications in respect of publication practices in science and tends to encourage or at least allow an outlet for pathological individualism.

Vixra does not moderate content, nor require any affiliation for publication. Thus it can contain fringe science, but that is quite different from specializing in fringe science.

It should be noted that, since any preprint (vixra, arxiv, or any other) is a publication form that precedes peer-review publication, by definition ALL preprint repositories contain both what could be considered "fringe" and "mainstream" science. Some publications are rejected, some are never submitted, while others are accepted in peer-review journals later on.

--Jf braxton (talk) 03:45, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

They're known for literally nothing else, as the totality of the sources in the article make pretty clear. I've changed "specializing in" to "known for" to avoid the argument over whether they deliberately specialize in anything at all (though their specialty certainly seems to be established de facto). XOR'easter (talk) 16:26, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

This seems like a good resolution. --JBL (talk) 00:03, 19 July 2021 (UTC)