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Failed good article nomination

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

The principal issues of this article are its WP:WEIGHT problems and its lack of stability.

  1. Is it reasonably well written?
    A. Prose quality:
    B. MoS compliance:
    There are too many weasel words, in the vein of: "Some proponents of the controlled demolition hypothesis have ..."
  2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
    A. References to sources:
    B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:
    The first paragraph of the "Overview" section has no references, and needs some.
    C. No original research:
    Judging from the references section, there is no independent source covering this general topic, which forces the article to synthesise a general picture of this conspiracy theory from individual sources, leading to WP:SYNTH concerns.
  3. Is it broad in its coverage?
    A. Major aspects:
    Probably yes, but cannot be thoroughly evaluated due to the concerns set out under no. 4 below.
    B. Focused:
    See no. 4 below.
  4. Is it neutral?
    Fair representation without bias:
    Per WP:WEIGHT, a subset of WP:NPOV, even pages specifically devoted to minority views must make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. The article is in violation of this policy. It devotes the bulk of its text to explaining the arguments of the conspiracy theorists. By this focus and by its choice of terms, it gives the overall impression that this is a "hypothesis" subject to serious discourse by reasonable people, instead of a conspiracy theory held by no-one except a small number of adherents. Two of many examples of this are the scare quotes used when referring to the "debunking" of the theory by Skeptic, or the lead's reference to "architects and engineers, scholars, and military and government officials" as supposed adherents, which provides the theory with a semblance of respectability, even though by this reference the author just means various groups of conspiracy theorists.
  5. Is it stable?
    No edit wars, etc:
    The article has been heavily edited in the last few days.
  6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
    A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:
    B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
  7. Overall:
    Pass or Fail:
    The article fails good article nomination. Sandstein (talk) 14:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks for this, Sanderstein. Happy editing.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 20:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Revert

As a New Englander I often stand up for plain talk. The lede should start by saying this is a 9/11 conspiracy theory because that is the most important context. Additionally, I have removed edits by an IP that went against both MONGO and Thomas Basboll, two editors who seem to be on opposite sides. The IP edits were clearly against policy. I express no opinion on the substance. Those could be reincluded if sources can be found. Jehochman Talk 19:36, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

As a sentence, it's of course much better. The status quo, however, was the result of consensus that took some doing to arrange. See this archive and its happy conclusion at at the bottom. Back then, conspiracy theory was mentioned in the second sentence. So your solution is in fact an improvement today. (I think we used to have something like "It is normally pursued as part of broader conspiracy theories related to 9/11" as the second sentence). At the time, our issue with it was that it isn't actually a conspiracy theory on its own--it's part of many different conspiracy theories. I still think that part/whole problem is relevant. (It doesn't make sense to say that CDH implies a CT, for example, with this as the first sentence.) One immediate problem with the "plain style" (which I also favour in real life) is that it is more controversial and will, no doubt, be less stable.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 20:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, yes, Arthur, he did say that backwards. You deleted "The enginner who oposse CDH are bootlickers. See Lysenko and how some scientific are bootlickers of the politicians." Actually, it's the other way around -- engineers who ARE bootlickers of the politicians oppose the CDH, but the only way we have to identify most of them is when they come out in their government-subsidized studies to support the OCT. Hmm. We really need some membership cards for the 9/11 Truth Movement. People would have to pass a spelling test.... Wowest (talk) 02:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Not a reliable source

Placing controversial statements with a citation to a blog is not correct.[1] I have checked and cannot find any other source that reports this fact. If you can find a better source, you are welcome to restore the fact, otherwise the statement must be removed. Jehochman Talk 21:23, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Please discuss differences whenever reverting my edits. [2] Jehochman Talk 22:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Please see WP:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. Why do you feel that sentence should be removed? Corleonebrother (talk) 22:05, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
With this edit, you have added things that will prevent the article from qualifying for good article status. Can you specify in each case who has alleged what? "Rumors began circulating." Who said the rumor? "Dan Rather said ABC." Then, cite a source. This is an extremely contentious article so we must be very specific to attribute all potentially contentious statements. Jehochman Talk 19:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I have done as you suggested. If the problem is sourcing, please can you either find a source yourself or tag it with { {cn} }, instead of just deleting... it makes things easier. Thank you. Corleonebrother (talk) 20:19, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Clean up for next good article nomination

I have deleted a variety of unsourced statements, original research, and personal opinions and speculations from the article. Please cite sources for all controversial statements, and when saying what a documentary or magazine reported, I strongly recommend quoting a short segment. This is a very neutral way to present the information. "X said Y", where Y is an exact quotation, is easily verified and unlikely to be controversial. Jehochman Talk 21:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The statement, "several documentaries have defended the controlled demolition hypothesis", which I removed,[3] needs to be cited to a source if it is re-added. Simply watching the documentaries and then characterizing them this way is a form of original research and is forbidden. Also, the external link appears to violate WP:EL because there indication that the link adds significant value to the article. Instead, the link appears to promote the resource linked to. Jehochman Talk 22:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


This is something that really annoys me about WP. If the claim has no source......FIND ONE (I assume you have a computor without parental locks). Do not delete without adding a fact tag first if you can't be bothered looking. I don't care if an edit is something I don't believe is true, I always look for a source first before deleting. I just picked 4 of your many deletions and they are problematic. [4] This was from a speech by Webster G. Tarpley on 5th November 2007 and is available on video. It took me (0.22 seconds) to find it on Google. [5] This is not a blog but a collection of clickable news stories from reliable sources. If you don’t like this source then use the RS it copied the story from. [6] This is a statement similar to “the sky is blue”. It is a combination of many sources. [7] Perfectly acceptable to keep the size of the article down. you can easily add the exact quotes if you have an hour to spare. Maybe some should be deleted but to mass delete because you dont like it is not a good idea. Wayne (talk) 09:09, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Please check WP:V. The burden is on the person adding material to verify it with a reliable source. The fellow you mention is an advocate, not an independent source with a reputation for fact checking. Wikipedia is not a soapbox for promoting fringe theories. If you disagree, let's take this to mediation. Jehochman Talk 12:14, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
So tag and check back in a week. It is arrogance to delete immediately if it's not a vandalism issue or a controversial claim as it doesn't give anyone a chance to add a ref. Wayne (talk) 20:37, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Tagging is not correct. Unverified information should normally be removed. The only times I don't is when I am confident that a reference can be found. Given that this is a conspiracy theory topic, we should have heightened vigilance against POV pushing. Deletion of unsourced, POV statements is the right thing to do. Those adding information are obligated to provide a means of verification. If they do not, the information should be removed.Jehochman Talk 20:44, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:CITE states:
"You can also add sources for material you did not write. Adding citations is an excellent way to contribute to Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check for organized efforts to add citations." Dscotese (talk) 03:16, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Also, "The fellow you mention is an advocate..." is a strange argument against mentioning him in an article on what is arguably a "conspiracy theory." Any discussion of a conspiracy theory ought to include mention of those who advocate it, as they are the very people responsible for the interest that others may have in it.

Ryan Mackey: On debunking 9/11 debunking (January 21, 2008)

I think this paper is relevant for the subject. Jesusfreund (talk) 03:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I have only read to page 18 (of 261) and already found two false statements and several dodgy suppositions. Basically that article (based on first 18 pages) appears to be no more a RS than many nutjob conspiracy websites. I'll read the rest when I have more time but what I've found wrong so far is very sloppy work and indicative of not even having researched what he is debunking. Wayne (talk) 07:58, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
You will be so good as to share these "false statements and several dodgy suppositions" with the rest of us. I've read the paper and found it a consummate piece of research. Joseph.nobles (talk) 23:36, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Not a "hypothesis."

The term is inaccurate, because it suggests it's a scientific hypothesis, and I don't believe the term "controlled demolition hypothesis" has ever been widely used. The current name is also very verbose. As such, I propose moving it to Controlled demolition of the World Trade Center (conspiracy theory). ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 00:04, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The term is accurate and correct terminology. "Hypothesis: noun: a tentative theory; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena", that is from an English dictionary or if you prefer an American dictionary of the English language: "A tentative explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation". It doesn't have to be widely used. Your suggestion is no less "verbose" than you claim the current title to be and is less correct linguistically as the official theory is also a conspiracy theory. Wayne (talk) 07:38, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
The lead sentence defines the hypothesis as a conspiracy theory. This makes clear that the theory is not proven, and that it is a small minority view of what happened. Jehochman Talk 02:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Theories are, by definition, unproven. In fact, the scientific method is quite clear that theories are never proven, but rather tested until no one doubts them any longer. You can only disprove theories. The lead sentence does NOT define the hypothesis as a conspiracy theory, it simply labels it. A definition would go something more like this "This theory suggests that a group of high-level individuals in the U.S. government conspired to create theses attacks." See, that is the "defining" level of detail that you ought to put there.Dscotese (talk) 06:37, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
It's not true that the label "conspiracy theory" *makes clear that the theory is not proven*. There actually exist proven conspiracy theories in the world. The label just suggest a generically negative POV attributed by wikipedia itself.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 08:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Neutral Point of View

Which is more neutral: "This is a theory." "This is a conspiracy theory."

-- Interjecting here, but: the former is an incomplete truth, and the latter is a pejoritive label. Correctly, it is indeed a theory, but widely disputed. I think you need a modifier on theory, yet not too verbose, and one that doesn't pass judgement. Fringe theory? Alternative theory? Don't know... but its an X theory, where X needs to be balance and forthright. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.199.188 (talk) 18:34, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

And again, which is more neutral (note that the source for the claim about "structural engineering literature" refers only to Bazant's article, which doesn't actually refer to any other engineers' discussion of the hypothesis):

The controlled demolition hypothesis has been dismissed in the analysis of the collapse provided by Northwestern University Professor of Civil Engineering Zdeněk BažantCite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).. Professor Bažant, who was among the first to offer a published peer reviewed hypothesis of the collapses...

The controlled demolition hypothesis has been dismissed in the structural engineering literature.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). Northwestern University Professor of Civil Engineering Zdeněk Bažant, who was among the first to offer a published peer reviewed hypothesis of the collapses...

Isn't the conspiratorial nature of this hypothesis already quite plain. Is there a reason to include the fact that it contradicts the mainstream account? If so, shouldn't this be said plainly instead of using a label - especially a pejorative one like 'conspiracy theory'?

When you perform a revert, you are making the statement that what a user has contributed has no value whatsoever. This is hardly ever true. I suggest that editing a user's contributions to retain the essential facts they wished to introduce is far better than a simple revert. Dscotese (talk) 02:58, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I strongly disagree with that last statement. A revert implies that the article was better before the contribution, not necessarily that there are no grains of usable data in the contribution. (In this case, I don't think there are any grains of usable data, but truthers are generating too much heat for sensible people to see the light, if any.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Also, I would like to comment that Wowest is using my typo of including an "N" in my edit summary as an excuse to revert it as being in bad faith. I'd appreciate an apology. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
If you revert because additional facts do not improve the article, you should explain why you feel that they do not improve it since, obviously, the original editor felt that they do improve it. This is part of good faith editing. Your disdain for "truthers" makes this difficult for you, I know, but to follow the good faith policy, just pretend that they are your children, bringing up facts that they think pertain, and post a comment explaining why they don't.
You didn't address my questions about the neutrality of the phrases I quoted. I don't mind if you condescend a little so I can understand your reasoning if you feel that the use of the term "conspiracy" or referring to "the structural engineering literature" instead of Bazant's paper itself is more neutral. Dscotese (talk) 00:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I've been doing a lot of research into Bazants paper and although published in a peer reviewed publication it was never actually peer reviewed. In fact, to date there have been no peer reviewed articles either pro or con at all so the sentence "among the first to offer a published peer reviewed hypothesis of the collapses" is incorrect. Bazants paper was written and submitted the day after 911 and based on past experience with buildings rather than any data on the WTC itself. Bazant himself says: "we are not attempting to model the details of the real failure mechanism but seek only to prove that the towers must have collapsed and do so in the way seen". Bazant also says: "Once accurate computer simulations are carried out, various details of the failure mechanism will undoubtedly be found to differ from the simplifying hypotheses (this paper) made. Errors by a factor of 2 would not be terribly surprising". Because of errors the paper would never pass peer review and should not be presented as such. Wayne (talk) 18:26, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
How do you know it wasn't peer-reviewed?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 18:36, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Apology

Arthur, I apologize for emphasizing your Freudian slip rather than your more generally erroneous statement.

You said "(remove apparently non-reliable source which doesn't support the text)" 

The Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE) 
(founded in 1908) is the world's leading professional 
body for structural engineering with over 22,000 members 
in 105 countries around the world. It is a leading source 
of expertise on all structural engineering and public 
safety issues in the built environment.

http://www.istructe.org/index.asp?bhcp=1

The Structural Engineer: Journal of the Institution of
Structural Engineers is published twice monthly by 
IStructE and is a major vehicle for communication with 
members worldwide.

First published in 1923, the Journal is supplied to 
all members of IStructE and to additional subscribers 
including libraries, universities, research bodies 
and various companies. 

http://www.istructe.org/thestructuralengineer/index.asp

The referenced PDF is to page 6 of the online edition,
3 Sept. 2002 Vol. 80 No. 17
ISSN: 1466-5123
Eight pounds seventeen pence.

The quotation you deleted is a direct quotation from this
page concerning the visit of the IStructE president to
Ground Zero. 

http://www.istructe.org/thestructuralengineer/files/se/SE172002.pdf

How reliable a source are you demanding, Arthur?

May I suggest that you consider restricting your editing to articles
related to mathematics, in which you apparently have a professional
level of competence, or take more care when you venture into such 
areas as politics, sex and religion?  It's just a suggestion.

Wowest (talk) 05:38, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Please attempt to remain civil.
This edit is not really good for the lead. "In making their case, they often emphasize the following facts: [...] 'They showed us many fascinating slides’". So do the aforementioned people often emphasize that some slides were shown to some people? Please don't try to make the lead into a laundry list of vague cherry-picked hearsay. Weregerbil (talk) 08:18, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Just a polite remark - I'd suggest all people stop using "catch" phrases while discussing 9/11 articles (I personally admit using them a lot in the past). It's natural and acceptable that each editor "cherry-picks" facts that interest him most. So in my opinion, phrases like "laundry list of vague cherry-picked hearsay" lack any meaning with regard to improvement of articles. The only thing we can read from such is a patronizing and intimidating tone and the author's will to strengthen his pov, not by arguments, but by pushing forward his "professional" image. This is unhelpful (especially when you take time to reprimand another). I'd suggest to stick to elaborated arguments based on WP:RS, WP:UNDUE.
Anyway, my thoughts on: "'They showed us many fascinating slides"; the phrase might be unfortunate but it's the second part of this sentence that was more important: "[Dr. Keith Eaton] continued, ‘ranging from molten metal which was still red hot weeks after the event, to 4-inch thick steel plates sheared and bent in the disaster’ and we should discuss this phrase if it's worth being included or not. salVNaut (talk) 14:58, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Lead Paragraph

I think this version reads better than the existing short first line that says only "this is a conspiracy theory" which is already known by most.

"The controlled demolition hypothesis is a hypothesis that the World Trade Center was not destroyed by the planes that crashed into it as part of the September 11th attacks, nor by the fires that followed, but by explosives or other devices planted in the buildings in advance. The hypothesis is also considered to be a 9/11 conspiracy theory. The most detailed statements of the hypothesis, a central theme for members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, have come from physicist Steven Jones, architect Richard Gage, software engineer Jim Hoffman, theologian David Ray Griffin, and author Webster Griffin Tarpley. In making their case, they often emphasize the collapse of 7 World Trade Center, which did not have a plane flown into it." bov (talk) 00:54, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The most important thing about the controlled demolition 'hypothesis' is that it is a conspiracy theory rather than a reasoned hypothesis that could be pursued scientifically to see how well it fits the facts. Do you think that having a string of words like "hypothesis is a hypothesis" in the first ten words of an article makes Wikipedia look like a well-written encyclopedia? John Nevard (talk) 01:12, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree. Department of redundancy department? Weregerbil (talk) 07:28, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Since we disagree on it, you'll need a reliable source to make a decision such as "The most important thing about the controlled demolition 'hypothesis' is that it is a conspiracy theory rather than a reasoned hypothesis that could be pursued scientifically..." If that is important, it should be mentioned elsewhere, but the lead should state what the hypothesis is and what verifiable evidence motivated its creators to propose it. In any case, even a cursory reading of the Steven Jones' paper suggests several areas of scientific research that could be pursued in order to defeat or support the hypothesis. Dscotese (talk) 00:03, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

"Obvious bias"?

A comment about this edit. I think it is strange to say that the specification "conspiracy theory" is needed to remove bias or to make the article more neutral. I could have found it meaningful to say that it was needed for a complete information, but to say that it is required to shift the POV amounts to say that we want the negative connotation of the term to influence the bias of the article, and I think this way of editing is against the spirit of WP:NPOV.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 13:18, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

It would certainly be false and unverifiable to say that it isn't a conspiracy theory. Why shouldn't it be stated in the article? As I stated, it seems biased to me not to include the fact that it's a conspiracy theory. I'd accept multiple uses of the word "conspiracy" in the lead instead, but it would need to be multiple uses to override the implication that the theory is accepted by, well, anyone sensible. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:13, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
It is called "hypothesis", so it is clear that it is not accepted. To consider the expression "conspiracy theory" as a way to suggest that the theory is not "accepted" is a dirty way of expressing this fact because you are taking advantage by the fact that the term ("conspiracy theory") is ambiguous and possible derogative. If the theory is not accepted and we have source it is certainly more clean and honest to just say explicitly that it is not accepted (and eventually link the source) avoiding abiguous and possibly derogative language.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 14:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually, 'hypothesis' implies that it is a honest scientific attempt to put forward a complete and better explanation of a phenomenon that better fits the evidence than others previously put forward. It isn't. It's a conspiracy theory. John Nevard (talk) 07:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I understand that you want to express that the hypothesis is not considered plausible by the expert but we should say this in the most explicit and neutral way, not by means of derogative terminology.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 19:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
"controlled demolition hypothesis conspiracy theory" is both unnecessary and ungrammatical. The grammatically correct wording would be "controlled demolition conspiracy theory" and it wouldn't last a minute in the article. WillOakland (talk) 01:16, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Furthermore (and I think this was discussed previously) the hypothesis is not a conspiracy theory. It's a feature of various conspiracy theories, and a favorite idea of the various intellectual cowards who "just ask questions" without advancing a theory. WillOakland (talk) 17:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
The article says that "Journalists and experts commenting on the events as they happened speculated that the World Trade Center collapses were caused by intentionally planted explosives", and this happened before we had any scientific analysis of the collapse. Moreover we read that NIST did actually consider the hypothesis as a possibility and the conclusion was
NIST stated that it "found no corroborating evidence for alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted prior to September 11
This shows that the hypothesis was not necessarlily pushed forward to claim cover ups by the government. Whether the hypotjesis is liked by "cospiracy theorists" or "intellectual coward" is not enough to make it a "conspiracy theory".--Pokipsy76 (talk) 19:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah. NIST stated that they considered the theory. They also give reasons to absolutely reject it -- which show that their serious consideration of whether the theory was plausible cannot have taken longer than a few minutes. Pandering to conspiracy theorists does not make for actual consideration of the theory as a plausible explanation of the real facts.John Nevard (talk) 02:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Why do you reword NIST according to your POV? NIST just said what is written above. Is someone saying that the theory is plausible here? No, so why do you insist that it is not plausible? The only thing to be considered here is: how is the most neutral way to speak about this hypothesis and its hystory? Certainly not by surrounding it with derogative slurs as much as we can.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 07:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

This is not the place for Truthers to push their novel theories of history. There is no reliable evidence that this happened; hence, it is a conspiracy theory, a fringe view that is ahistorical. Jehochman Talk 17:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The suggested wording is
  • Grammatically incorrect
  • Inaccurate. I would think it obvious that a conspiracy theory must describe at least one conspiracy, e.g. "The Bush administration conspired to lie about WMDs" or "The mafia conspired to kill Kennedy." The CDH does not. The CDH has appeared in peer-reviewed articles by Bazant that are not discussing a conspiracy theory, but merely refuting the CDH per se.
WillOakland (talk) 17:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

We need to accurately define what the theory is: a conspiracy theory. The article should not start out by proposing the theory as something that might be true, when it is in fact a fringe view, that is universally discredited by reliable sources. Truthers will disagree with me, but those with fringe views do not get to write Wikipedia according to their beliefs. Instead, Wikipedia is based on what the preponderance of reliable sources say. Until this matter is fixed, the article will be labeled as a violation of NPOV so that readers are not misled. Jehochman Talk 18:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, furthermore, if this isn't a conspiracy theory because it's a feature of various conspiracy theories, then the same must hold true for the word hypothesis. So by that logic, they both go or they both stay. RxS (talk) 18:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think an article without a title is really an option. Bazant has analyzed it in peer-reviewed work, and NIST said they were going to mention it in their WTC7 report, so why wouldn't it be an hypothesis? WillOakland (talk) 18:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Hypothesis is only part of the title, articles can be renamed quite easily. RxS (talk) 18:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
It's now a conspiracy theory because of all the denials by many people who would know. Perhaps it wasn't initially a conspiracy theory. However, prominent placement of the fact that it is generally considered a conspiracy theory within the first two or three sentences is probably adequate to avoid undue weight. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Maybe it is generally labeled as "conspiracy theory" by some sources, but this does not mean that we are allowed to label it in that way as well. Probably a lot of sources labeled Maradona as the "strongest football player ever" but we can't do the same without attribution. (It would also be important to check how "general" this labeling is between which kind of sources).--Pokipsy76 (talk) 07:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Jehochman, do you have a particular objection to my last edit that puts the conspiracy theory reference later in the paragraph? WillOakland (talk) 18:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
The article starts awkwardly by quoting the theory, rather than by explaining what it is. I do not think the current formulation will be stable. Let's start an Requests for comment to get more views. Jehochman Talk 18:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
The article starts by explaining exactly what the hypothesis is, because that's what the article is about. BTW, NIST explicitly refers to a "controlled demolition hypothesis" here. I don't understand why you insist on casting this as a dispute between truthers and sane people, because it isn't. But if you want to write an RFC then, as someone who wants to change the longstanding wording, you can do that. WillOakland (talk) 18:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
It is interesting that some are arguing based on their own definition of the word. The dictionary definition is:

Hypothesis
noun: a: an assumption or concession made for the sake of argument b: a tentative theory; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena. A hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a theory which implies a greater range of evidence and greater likelihood of truth.

Apparently the title fits rather accurately. I'd guess that most opposition is by those who want a title that denigrates the hypothesis. Wayne (talk) 06:53, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
After the Towers collapsed the idea that they could have been destroyed by planted explosives was a way-out hypothesis that provided a very poor explanation of the attacks. Now that all the issues surrounding the attacks have been resolved, the "controlled demolition hypothesis" is not a legitimate 'tentative' hypothesis-- it's proven to be entirely implausible. John Nevard (talk) 08:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Nist said they didn't find evidences for such hypothesis, not that they proved it to be "entirely implausible". Who provided these "proofs"?--Pokipsy76 (talk) 10:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Is it a conspiracy theory? Weregerbil (talk) 08:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Is Barack Obama a Nigger?--Pokipsy76 (talk) 10:16, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for your answer, it is most illuminating. Weregerbil (talk) 13:18, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that your question was just a candid request for informations?--Pokipsy76 (talk) 13:29, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
It was a question directed towards discussing what I think of as important points of the issue. It was indeed a request for information on how you (the larger "you", not first person singular) view the issue. I was much informed by your answer, thank you. Weregerbil (talk) 13:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Pokipsy76, and Wayne makes a fairly accurate observation -- "I'd guess that most opposition is by those who want a title that denigrates the hypothesis." It's pretty transparent what's going on. The original version of the article never included the phrase "conspiracy theory." It is a hypothesis, not a theory. bov (talk) 21:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion about "conspiracy theory"

It's been awhile, and it looks like many of the same old issues remain. I wonder if a sentence saying "The CDH is typically dismissed as a conspiracy theory, both in the mainstream media and in the engineering community." If that were the second sentence (with necessary adjustments to avoid redundancy after that) wouldn't that satisfy everyone?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 21:28, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The first sentence

Weregerbil has once again given us:

According to the controlled demolition hypothesis conspiracy theory, the World Trade Center was not destroyed by the planes that crashed into it as part of the September 11th attacks, nor by the fires that followed, but by explosives or other devices planted in the buildings in advance

The underlined is an unhappy label, not used in any source that I am aware of. (I think Steve Clarke's recent paper in Episteme may be the most scholarly treatment of the CDH so far [8]. He uses both "controlled demolition conspiracy theory" and "controlled demolition hypothesis" but not "CDH CT".) IMO, we have to choose between:

(A) The controlled demolition hypothesis is a 9/11 conspiracy theory. It proposes that the World Trade Center was not destroyed by the planes that crashed into it as part of the September 11th attacks, nor by the fires that followed, but by explosives or other devices planted in the buildings in advance.

and

(B) According to the controlled demolition hypothesis, the World Trade Center was not destroyed by the planes that crashed into it as part of the September 11th attacks, nor by the fires that followed, but by explosives or other devices planted in the buildings in advance. It is broadly dismissed as a conspiracy theory, both in the mainstream media and in the engineering community.

In order to keep things calm (I hope), I will now implement version A, which is really just a stylistically improved version of Weregerbil's suggestion. I next propose a straw poll on the two version.

Straw poll (vote A or B)

I usually take hypotheses to state indicative not subjunctive propositions, hypothetically of course. There are exceptions, but they don't look like this case. A subjunctive hypothesis could be: "According to fire-proofing hypothesis, the WTC towers would not have collapsed if the fire-proofing had not been knocked off the structure." But the CDH says hypothesizes that "the towers were not destroyed by the impacts and fires alone".--Thomas Basboll (talk) 09:05, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
  • B is preferable as it is grammatically correct and uses terminology accepted by sources with opposing POVs. (It's no good for editors to come in here and say they personally don't like the wording even though authoritative sources are using it.) However, it is just inaccurate to say that the CDH is a conspiracy theory; it's a feature of CTs. WillOakland (talk) 08:38, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
What I don't understand is why one version -- which clearly many on here disagree with, even just on a grammatical basis -- has to be the given version that *is allowed* be on the page, despite the fact that the whole issue is in discussion. If a discussion is going on, why is the most ungrammatical and nonsensical version left on the front page, and no changes can be made? 152.131.10.133 (talk)
Because, in typical Wikipedia fashion, particular editors are claiming that the matter has been "settled" and keep reverting it. WillOakland (talk) 02:54, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Why not (C) According to the controlled demolition conspiracy theory, the World Trade Center was not destroyed by the planes that crashed into it as part of the September 11th attacks, nor by the fires that followed, but by explosives or other devices planted in the buildings in advance. It is broadly dismissed in the mainstream media and the engineering community. --DHeyward (talk) 08:34, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
The reason I didn't suggest it is that it would (I think) require that the article's name be changed, and that too many changes would be needed throughout the article. A "hypothesis" is the thing NIST dismissed; it's also what many proponents call it. It is therefore useful to identify it by that name. Consider starting the intelligent design article with "According to creationism..." (I don't want to get involved in that debate, but I'd say option A here has the virtue of actually saying that critics dismiss it as the equivalent of creationism. That argument seems to be somewhat buried in the ID article.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 08:52, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
  • B as modified: Instead of It is broadly dismissed as a conspiracy theory by..., it should be It is considered a conspiracy theory, and is broadly dismissed by .... I believe the sources support that it is broadly dismissed as being physically implausible, as well as being an implausible conspiracy theory. Without that modification, I weakly lean toward A. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I agree, but I'll have a look at the responses again. I wil then try to improve the overview section to capture this point. (These sentences should be summarizing the overview; in fact, if we do this right, we might be able to replace the overview section ... which is almost a lead itself.)--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:13, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
  • B. This argument comes down to the question if there is any scientific substance in CDH (if there is not, we should change the title also). In my opinion there is and CDH is as far the best explanation to molten metal anomaly(?), Steven Jones' work in particular[9][10] (I wonder if his work will be ever published, it was/is close to that as I keep finding out). This might be due to the fact that no one else took time to try to explain this scientifically, not due to CDH being true explanation. Any opinions on that matter? salVNaut (talk) 15:22, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I would say A, but I basically changed it to B with an addition: a 'so-called' conspiracy theory, because strictly speaking, also the Al-Qaeda theory is conspirational, it only places the conspiracy entirely outside of the US. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nashledanou (talk • contribs) 15:47, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Implementation

I have made a first attempt to interpret the emerging consensus. It has resulted in this version so far. Feel free to revert pending a clearer consensus. Comments are welcome.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 11:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Policy

Straw polls cannot overcome policy. When we have a page about bigfoot, a poll of bigfoot believers is not the way we decide how to cover the topic. As a fringe view, this article must be clearly labeled as such. It is a theory about a conspiracy, thus, it is a conspiracy theory. This policy reflects a broad consensus of the Wikipedia community. If you disagree, start a discussion at a central place to change policy. If anybody doubts my resolution in ensuring policy is followed, see Waterboarding, Talk:Waterboarding, Talk:Waterboarding/Definition and lastly Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Waterboarding. Thank you. Jehochman Talk 02:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

What exactly is the policy violation? The artical is clearly labeled as a conspiracy theory so I don't see what your arguement is. I also caution you to be careful in making threats in support of your views if you want to be taken seriously here. Wayne (talk) 03:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes. I am the one who restored the clear label. It had been removed.[11] Jehochman Talk 03:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm confused. Looking at the revert you did shows you have removed mention that the hypothesis is a conspiracy theory rejected by the mainstream media and engineering community. To me that reversion gives the theory undue weight and seems at odds with what you are objecting to. Wayne (talk) 03:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Here is the explanation: I restored the 9/11 conspiracy theory statement to the first sentence where it belongs, because we have to start the article by plainly identifying the subject. This is a fringe theory about a conspiracy; hence, we must call it a conspiracy theory of some sort, or else the readers may be deceived into thinking that things actually happened this way, when in fact, according to a great preponderance of reliable sources, this theory is like a fairy tale. The second mention of conspiracy theory, greatly watered down, is unnecessary once we have already said it once, so I removed the redundancy. Jehochman Talk 08:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree with Jehochman on this. Let's call a spade a spade. This is a conspiracy theory regarding 9/11 and a subarticle of the 9/11 conspiracy theories article. This needs to be said up front. --Aude (talk) 11:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm still confused because your explanation makes no sense. The first sentence says "controlled demolition hypothesis" which means it is not a proven explanation and the phrase is also what NIST called it. Far from the second mention watering it down it reinforces that the hypothesis is not accepted. A conspiracy theory does not automatically mean it is false and in fact implies some truth as conspiracy theories almost always are found to contain proven elements making the second mention virtually a requirement. I still see no violation of any WP policy apart from your revert. On the other hand your revert supports controlled demolition as a possibility which puzzles me. Wayne (talk) 12:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
This is definitely NOT a "fringe" theory, according to Time magazine, which is quoted on this elsewhere. Nineteen percent of the US population believes explicitly that controlled demolition brought down the three buildings. That is about sixty million people. Wowest (talk) 16:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, you may have misunderstood WP:FRINGE. Probably more than 19% of people believe in astrology or magic, but Wikipedia does not run on public opinion. We rely on reliable sources. Among reliable sources, this theory is a fringe theory. Jehochman Talk 16:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, by the way -- since the "Mainstream" account is ALSO "a theory about a conspiracy," it should also be so labeled. The only parts that are publicly proven facts are the parts about four airplanes being hijacked and two airplanes being flown into the WTC towers. Wowest (talk) 16:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, no. The mainstream account is history, as confirmed by verifiable sources. Please stop your tendentious disruption of this article, or else you may be subject to ArbCom sanctions. Jehochman Talk 16:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, no, yourself. The mainstream account is propaganda created by the Bush regime, repeated verbatim by a captive domestic media, then parroted again by foreign media. Perhaps, in a hundred years or so, we might get some history concerning this. It may still be propaganda, then, but "everyone will know" it's history, whatever it says.
I would request that you and Aude stop your tendentious name-calling. You're the one who just defined "conspiracy theory" as a theory about a conspiracy. That describes the OCT to the teeth. Wowest (talk) 17:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I will formally warn Aude and Jehochman for POV pushing. Jehochman, are you calling the theory (or fact) that bin Laden conspired for 9/11 a conspiracy theory? If you do, than please make sure that you apply the same reasoning to September 11, 2001 attacks. If you do not, then please refrase your fourth sentence. It's elementary logic. Please do not push (any) POV, let's work together.  — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 19:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement#Xiutwel. Jehochman Talk 14:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
The mainstream account IS NOT history and can not be until such time as it is proved or sufficient time has passed to allow the assumption that the theory is probably correct. I refer you to Robert F. Kennedy assassination where what was previously a conspiracy theory no more credible than many 911 theories for the last 40 years has recently proved largely true. To claim the official theory has been proved is POV pushing no diffent than that for which you are condemning others. While Wowest may be sailing close to the wind with his replies I point out that many replies to him are no less extreme in nature. We should be working towards a neutral article not misapplying Arbcom to shut down editors you do not agree with. Since the Arbcom I have noticed a disturbing trend to invoke it for the most innocuous edits or comments by editors who are at times problematic. Wayne (talk) 12:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
WLRoss (talk · contribs), please read tendentious editing, and disruptive editing and make sure to steer clear. Jehochman Talk 14:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The first peer-reviewed publication by CDH proponents in Open Civil Engineering Journal

Just a moment ago, above, I expressed my doubts about if there's ever will be a publication of this sort, and hey! here it is:

Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction (18 April, 2008) Open Civil Engineering Journal

Jump on it fellow editors :) salVNaut (talk) 15:32, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

The title might not, but the read does indeed solidify the use of the term "controlled demolition hypothesis". salVNaut (talk) 15:37, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
PUBLICATION FEES: The publication fee details for each article published in the journal are given below:
Letters: The publication fee for each published Letter article submitted is $600.
Research Articles: The publication fee for each published Research article is $800.
Mini-Review Articles: The publication fee for each published Mini-Review article is $600.
Review Articles: The publication fee for each published Review article is $900.
http://www.bentham.org/open/tociej/MSandI.htm

They paid to get their article published. --Sloane (talk) 15:56, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Which means they get paid for taking their time to review and check the articles for correctness.salVNaut (talk) 17:25, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
You should be careful with statements like that because you just suggested that people on this list put 900$ above their careers and credibility as scientists. salVNaut (talk) 17:34, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
After careful study, I would like to explicitly assert that I do not agree with Sloane. "Page fees" (article fees, in this case) do not mean that the article is not subject to peer review. That being said, I can't find anywhere where it explicitly states that that article was subject to peer review. "Letters" in a peer-reviewed journal are not usually subject to peer review. Other article classes may or may not be subject to peer review. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Of course, we need to take a close and careful look at this and the best thing now is to wait until a secondary source reports about this paper. Steven Jones confirmed that his paper was peer-reviewed in his comments at 911Blogger.com[12]. Anyway, the article is published[13] inside 2008 issue along 4 other articles on various civil engineering topics. One can read a statement by the editorial director at Bentham Science Publishers about their online journals, where stands: Open Access journals are no different from traditional subscription-based journals; they undergo the same peer-review and quality control as any other scholarly journal. (more info here) salVNaut (talk) 20:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I see no obvious way to tell whether an individual article is peer-reviewed. In "traditional" (i.e., paper) journals, the reader can see what class an article is in by looking where it appears on paper. In this particular online journal, there seems no way to distinguish between a letter (almost certainly not reviewed) and a research paper (almost certainly reviewed), with survey papers having an intermediate level of review. The blog states that it's a "Letter" ("In this Letter....").... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Not sure which blog are you referring to, but here you can see the paper listed under Recent Articles (article=?paper). Let's hold our horses and wait for a reliable comment, which will show up if the paper is peer-reviewed. salVNaut (talk) 20:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
After clicking on the bar Important to know for authors & librarians one can read: All submitted articles undergo a fast but rigorous peer-review procedure, followed by prompt submission of an article for publication. salVNaut (talk) 20:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
It is not uncommon for a peer reviewed publication to charge a fee see here and here. In my opinion it is time to rephrase that opening line in "Reaction of the engineering community" and a rework of that section. Yippee.... Tony0937 (talk) 22:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, we could proceed. Is this press release enough to put a reference in the article? I think that the lead should be changed, in particular the part:

"...but is rejected and regarded as a conspiracy theory both in the mainstream media and by the engineering community"

should reflect that the CDH is being discussed by some in engineering community. I'd put a reference to this press release. I also think that ae911truth.org have it's place here. salVNaut (talk) 11:34, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

What struck me as more interesting, given earlier doubt as to the nature of this material, is that the PR release confirms that it was indeed a letter. Angus McLellan (Talk) 11:44, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Regardless of the format it is still an article. Its primary purpose is "to set a foundation for productive discussion and understanding". At the very least we need to change the lead to reflect the change. It could be as simple as dropping the reference to the engineering community like this :"but has been rejected and regarded as a conspiracy theory mainstream media." Do we need to qualify that that there is some discussion of this within the engineering community as well? I think it should, but I want to know what others think.
The change to "Reaction of the engineering community" needs to be more extensive and since three of the five authors are also signatories to the petition at ae911truth there is an argument for including a reference to their support as well. Tony0937 (talk) 18:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
So far as "productive discussion and understanding" is concerned, probably it's best to see whether that results, or not, before making any changes. There's no deadline. Angus McLellan (Talk) 20:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
I am not in a hurry. However that is not an argument for not dealing with the facts in a proper manner. The sections under discussion are no longer accurate and therefor they need to be changed. If other articles in other publications respond to this article they will have to be dealt with as well. To put it another way, how the offer of dialog is responded to does not affect the fact that the offer was made. Tony0937 (talk) 22:57, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Five people getting together to write a letter, and spending 120 dollars each to get it published, is not much of a sign that the "reaction of the engineering community" has changed. This is hardly worthy of an aside in a footnote. If views change, you'll know soon enough. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
That is denigrating and dismissive and does not address reality. If you want to look at numbers as a indicator you should note that over 300 architectural and engineering professionals have signed the petition at ae911truth and there are over a hundred articles and letters at journalof911studies. Finally we have an article is published that passes WP:RS and you want to trivialize it as WP:UNDUE but that will not fly. Tony0937 (talk) 20:46, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Tony, I think it is rather trivial, but evidently you disagree. So, if you think it belongs in the article, please go ahead and give it a whirl. Angus McLellan (Talk) 22:10, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
The reality is also that average engineers don't read 10,000 page documents. Like everyone else, they simply read the abstract and assume the science was done correctly and that if it were not, someone would eventually speak up. This letter is speaking up. This is how science happens and how incorrect theories are eventually discarded, through dialog and testing of theories. The engineering community counts on academics to do real science because most engineers are busy doing engineering at their job, buying houses, raising kids and watching programs on TV, like everyone else. 152.131.10.133 (talk) 22:35, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Edit warring

Please stop edit warring and stop making changes without consensus. Any significant change must be proposed here, discussed and eventually added only if there is consensus. Don't you agree?--Pokipsy76 (talk) 16:46, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

There is no requirement to obtain permission before editing when the edit is non-controversial and complies with Wikipedia's content policies. This page has been frequented by Truthers seeking to promote their fringe view of history. Objections from fringe views do not make an edit controversial. It is not necessary to get permission from obstructive, tendentious or disruptive editors before fixing content policy violations. I welcome all editors to participate in editing this article, so long as they follow Wikipedia's content policies, especially neutral point of view, no original research and verifiability Jehochman Talk 16:58, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
It's not up to you to decide whether
  1. an addition is noncontroversial
  2. an addition complies with wikipedia policies
  3. an addition is NPOV
  4. a person is a truther
  5. a theory is fringe
these are all matter of discussion and must be estabilished by means of consensus. Your way to address this page is aggressive, unpolite and largely assumes bad faith. So far the standard behaviour on the 9/11 pages is to discuss and check cosnensus before making any relevant change. This is a constructive behaviour. Your kind of behaviour is the behaviour of people who are looking for edit wars.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 17:06, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
The consensus is what Thomas and others had build up having followed the Wikipedia editorial process. Your appeals to WP:OR or WP:V have absolutely no ground. Do they show that you haven't read the straw poll discussion, where one topic is about how CDH is being referred to by WP:V sources? Aren't you a bit too sure of yourself and your opinion? The case is delicate and doesn't need another "I know it better" editor but a careful look (though, I think that there are more important topics than the lead of this article). salVNaut (talk) 17:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Now he will probably try to make you ban too, see [14].--Pokipsy76 (talk) 07:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

It looks to me that the original change was made with no discussion, and words presumably and uncounted really don't (in this context) have a place here. I'd suggest trying some draft wording here and see what people think. RxS (talk) 17:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Which change are you talking about??? See this talk page: almost everything has been largely discussed before Thomas was (unexplainably) banned.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 17:18, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
This matter is already open for discussion at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement#Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Clarifications and motions#Request for appeal: Topic ban of Thomas Basboll. Please do not create a disruption by spreading the conversation to multiple venues, Pokipsy76. Jehochman Talk 17:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Using the phrase "conspiracy theory" TWICE in the first paragraph is like saying "The white building is white." Basic grammer. Pick one to keep and remove the other. I choose the first one due to the absurdity of saying that a hypothesis is a conspiracy theory. 152.131.10.133 (talk) 22:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Please let's not try to hide what this article is about. This is first and foremost about a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Weregerbil (talk) 08:38, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Changing "The white house is white" to "the house is white" is just basic grammer, not HIDING that the idea that the house is white. Please do not try to reframe the situation as something it is not. 152.131.10.133 (talk) 21:08, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that is a grammar mistake. Though I'm not an expert on the English language, but then again, given your consistent misspelling of the word "grammar", I doubt you are one either. Both 9/11 conspiracy theories and conspiracy theory are relevant and informative links. Weregerbil (talk) 07:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Well when I look at the entry for conspiracy theory then it is apparent that the phrase has a pejorative tone. It seems to me that it is the goal of some of the editors to apply this meaning to this article, In other words their goal is to discredit the idea as unworthy of consideration.
In [WP:NPOV] it states that the following:
===Let the facts speak for themselves===
Karada offered the following advice in the context of the Saddam Hussein article:
You won't even need to say he was evil. That is why the article on Hitler does not start with "Hitler was a bad man"—we don't need to, his deeds convict him a thousand times over. We just list the facts of the Holocaust dispassionately, and the voices of the dead cry out afresh in a way that makes name-calling both pointless and unnecessary. Please do the same: list Saddam's crimes, and cite your sources.
Remember that readers will probably not take kindly to moralizing. If you do not allow the facts to speak for themselves you may alienate readers and turn them against your position.
Lets look at this phrase "and is generally regarded as a conspiracy theory" The link is to an article by one person so it is the view of one individual, Steve Clarke PhD. (Philosophy). Just as this is the viewpoint of one individual [15] Karen S. Johnson Arizona State Senator, as is this one [16] William Rice, Civil Engineer. Neither of these people view the idea as a "conspiracy theory". The phrase should ether be stricken or reworded as "and Steve Clarke PhD. regarded it as a conspiracy theory" Tony0937 (talk) 00:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Although you may be technically right the statement is factually accurate and well enough known that it does not need multiple refs. The only failure I see is mention that NIST could not and did not determine a cause for the collapse (their explanation although more likely is also a hypothesis) as a qualifier. Wayne (talk) 04:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I put the reference to the letter by Jones et al in the reactions section this is a peer reviewed paper and the reverence to it is from a reliable source. It clearly belongs in the article and this seems to be the bes section for it. Tony0937 (talk) 14:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

What you added does not have a reference to a peer-reviewed article, even if the article in question is peer-reviewed. It's possible the edit could stand on its own, but your edit comment doesn't match the edit. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:24, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Fixed links; added {{verify credibility}} tags to the Deseret News (plausible, but requires research), and a site cannot be a reliable source that the organization running it exists. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:48, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Lead

The lead is not for reporting on Truther propaganda initiatives. Hence, I have removed what was added there.[17] In the same edit I have removed the duplicate mention of conspiracy theory. Once in this section is enough, I think. Jehochman Talk 15:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I would like to hear opinions on that. The Desert News article I sourced clearly informed about the peer-reviewed article in the engineering journal by Jones and others. This one of the strongest sources, and arguments, for existence of this article, imho. salVNaut (talk) 16:16, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Difficult to see how your edits were in line with WP:LEAD's advice. I'm still not sure where the news on the letter - and letter it was - belongs, but it doesn't belong in the lead. If you want to take the Deseret News's word for it being a paper rather than a letter, you should check whether the words "peer-reviewed" appear in their article. Oops? Angus McLellan (Talk) 16:44, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Ooops? Are we reading the same article?
His new peer-reviewed paper in the Open Civil Engineering Journal doesn't rip NIST or FEMA or the government. It does just the opposite. It lays out 14 points of agreement Jones and his colleagues have with the official government reports. salVNaut (talk) 16:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
As for the WP:LEAD - ok, I probably should get familiar with this guideline, never had time or chance to do it before. salVNaut (talk) 16:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough, evidently I misread it. Oops right enough. Short version: the lead is a stand-alone summary of the content. *It should not need references* because everything should be referenced in the body of the article. OK, it's only a manual of style guideline, not set in stone, but if everyone else is doing things that way, you should at least have a reason for doing things differently. Angus McLellan (Talk) 16:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

A lot of deleting lately (instead of a simple searching for secondary sources - please try), but shouldn't this information based on a perfectly reliable secondary source be brought back in the article (not neccessairly in the lead)? salVNaut (talk) 01:00, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth

re: Arthur Rubin's claim ae911truth is unimportant and doesn't deserve to be listed as NPOV to show both sides when claiming the engineering community disagress entirely. It is not original research and their claims are verifiable, so unless you can give some other reason why the opinion of over 350 licensed architects and engineers is unimportant, the reference to them will stay. LiteBrigade (talk)

and AE911truth serves at best that a few people who claim to be engineers believe in the CDH. If that's all we have, then the statement that engineers, in general, reject the CDH should stand. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:26, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Primary sources are not used to establish notability. This biased information has been removed.[18] It should not be restored. Jehochman Talk 00:50, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I have to dispute "at best that a few people who claim to be engineers believe in the CDH" as an article in one of Australias leading media publications ran an article on them a few weeks ago and specifically noted that several of this countries (Australia) leading engineers are members. I agree that it should not be in the lead but it should be in the body as there is no dispute that the members are legitimate and that many are notable in their own right. To claim they are "few" and only "claim" to be engineers is POV pushing. That the group is significant is indicated by the fact that comments regarding the article came close to exceeding the highest number ever submitted on any subject in the ABC's history (the ABC stopped accepting comments at this point due to "a possible attempt to deliberately break the record"). The only change in the lead that would be appropriate is to add a qualifier to "rejected by the mainstream media and by the engineering community" to indicate that rejection by engineers is a plurality rather than the falsely implied outright majority. Wayne (talk) 08:02, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't have said that in the article, as it would be POV pushing. If we can find a reliable source, "rejected by the engineering community" should be rewritten to indicate that it's rejected by the vast majority of those engineers who have stated an opinion in polls of engineers, although some engineers may differ. I still don't see AE911Truth as relevant, and the number of article comments may very well have started with a concerted effort by AE911truth members to keep the article in the "public eye", before becoming "a possible attempt to deliberately break the record". There's really no way to tell. LiteBrigade (as in Truth Lite (?)) was attempting only to quote AE911Truth.com as evidence that AE911Truth is notable, which is clearly faulty reasoning. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:21, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Well seeing as the reverence for "rejected by the engineering community" links to "Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology" it does not support the claim. I know about Zdeněk Bažant and Thomas Eagar rejecting the idea but it is a leap of logic to to say that they represent the majority of engineers when confronted with the number of engineers that have signed the petition at AE911Truth.org. Unless you can find a poll as to support that there is such a majority then the the statement "rejected by the engineering community" is unsupportable. 199.185.111.188 (talk) 18:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
We can't say this in the article, but "rejected by the engineering community" is obviously true. Do you want me to conduct a poll of engineers where I work? We couldn't use that either, but it's better than using AE911Truth as a source. Bažant may not be the best source, but it seems the only one we have. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:41, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
It is not the only source we have. Even if you want only include peer reviewed stuff then there is still the article by co-authored by Mechanical Engineer Anthony Szamboti [19]. There is no consensus within the engineering community. Therefore the statement is false and needs to be removed. Tony0937 (talk) 19:09, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Here I a link to the article in the Australian Mainstream media that Wayne was talking about http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2240510.htm. To quote:

"The membership of Architects and Engineers For 9/11 Truth is worldwide, and qualified Australians have made contributions. Dr. Frank Legge, a chemist, has co-authored a peer reviewed paper, and Dr. David Leifer of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Sydney is a registered member of the group."

Tony0937 (talk) 18:04, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Another link for the by mainstream media here. Although it doesn't talk about AE911truth directly it is RS taking about engineers and architects.
Relevant quote: "The improbability of the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 is a major concern of these officers and a growing number of scientists, engineers and architects." Tony0937 (talk) 18:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

William Rodriguez

re: Arthur Rubin's claim William Rodriguez never said he witnessed secondary explosions in the WTC, I find this an incredible claim as he says it all the time, it is his raison d'etre, and I have actually heard him speak live about this topic. So unless you can provide some proof of your claim he never said that, the paragraph on Willy Rodriguez will stay as he is probably the most credible source there is for bombs in the buildings, even more than Dan Rather and Peter Jennings who are referenced above him. LiteBrigade (talk)

My mistake Rodriguez still doesn't strike me as a credible witness, but we can still quote him as saying he said he witnessed secondary explosions, if you can phrase it properly. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:30, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I find this, as well as many of these as perfect secondary sources. I think the paragraph describing his account should be restored. salVNaut (talk) 01:05, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I particularly like #5 from the latter list, which describes someone with the same name describing a similar explosion 2 weeks before. If it's the same person, it casts a whole new light on the story.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:28, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
That's what I call a bad research on sources... Rodriguez repeated his story hundreds of times to people around the world. I'd choose this source. I do not make much of it except that he witnessed something strange (same as other survivors that no one listens to, like the one who's "flesh was hanging from his face and both arms", like firefighters who experienced explosions at the bottom of WTC, etc), something strange that is never explained (blow through elevator shaft is not scientifically researched) to this day.
The bottom line is that he is notable, important to 9/11 Truth movement and CDH. salVNaut (talk) 17:59, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
The fact that sound travels faster through steel than through air would (probably) give a boom heard from below a full second earlier than the actual sound of the explosion from above, and need I go into what happens with a relatively small amount of jet fuel, mixed with a large amount of air, such as an elevator shaft or a fuel tank on TWA 800? That being said, he may be notable, but we need references saying that someone else thinks he's notable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:41, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
The CNN article provided below by Wane, and many others, prove Rodriguez notability. Notabilty for 9/11 truth and CDH is established by D.R.Griffin in his books (i.e. "Debunking 9/11 debunking"). That's most probably correct what you're saying about the boom; as for the explosion travelling down through shafts - I have no clue. salVNaut (talk) 12:30, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
I doubt it is the same person as it would be unusual for someone who worked in the WTC to commute 700 miles every day. Rodriguez should get a mention somewhere as his story is confirmed by 14 other witnesses who were with him. Felipe David (a WTC office worker who was severely burnt) and Salvatore Giambanco (a WTC painter) who were both in sublevel 1 but on opposite sides of the building and Jose Sanchez (a WTC maintenance worker) who was in the sublevel 4 workshop all claim there was a basement explosion below them. In each case there were other people with them but only these three went public and to date none of the other witnesses have come forward to either confirm or reject their stories. Then we have WTC Engineer Mike Pecoraro who claims the sub garage and workshop he passed on his way out from the basement were totally destroyed by an explosion. Whatever the cause of the explosions the witness testimony is relevant even if discounted. Wayne (talk) 08:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
The Rodriguez story has steadily inflated over the years. In the beginning he describes hearing a loud bang from below, and helping someone with burns out of the building. After some years have passed, he now has heroically saved numerous people, after several huge explosions tore the building apart in front of his very eyes.
I do not doubt he heard a bang as the plane hit the building. As he was standing on the floor I do not doubt he felt the building shake. The floor shaking surely felt like something was happening right under him. Human ears being located on horizontal level they have poor resolution in the vertical direction; "heard a sound from below" requires a healthy pinch of salt.
Sound travels at 5100 m/s in steel, 343 m/s in air. As anyone living by a lake can tell you, when you have two substances of different speed velocities you tend to hear remote sounds twice. Mr. Rodriguez heard a bang twice, at short intervals.
It appears there was a service elevator shaft in the basement, and two man standing on front of it received burns from flames coming out of the shaft some ten seconds after the plane hit. Aviation fuel + a tall hole + gravity = guess what.
Mr. Rodriguez's statements appear to become increasingly interesting, colourful, and heroic as conspiracy theorists pay him to travel the country and speak to them. Who would have thunk.
This demonstrates the need of reliable sources making a balanced analysis of different possible explanations, rather than conspiracy theorists picking and embellishing the Truths that they want to believe in. Weregerbil (talk) 09:40, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Contrary to what you are claiming Rodriguez story has not inflated at all. See this article. As well as mention of his movements the man who's skin was off mentioned in this article was the Felipe David I mentioned above and for Rodriguez to see him at that time and comparing it to David's statement indicates that Rodriguez story is virtually unchanged from that given in 2001. Wayne (talk) 00:42, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Heh, thanks for the link. "Heard two rumbles like furniture being moved, a man with burns came to the office, we climbed out"[20] has become "explosions rocked the basement, walls were cracking, hero saved numerous lives, "man who came to the office" has become "pulled a man to safety"[21]. You notice no change there? Weregerbil (talk) 11:21, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Nope. You will notice that the date of the article is the morning after 911 yet all the elements of the Rodriguez story are there though lacking in detail. The detailed version reported in newspapers later is backed up by every other witness present and rescue workers tho saw him later. For example, "pulled a man to safety" is actually an understatement because firemen later said Rodriguez carried the guy out on his back then re entered the building to rescue others. That the basement was "rocked" by explosions is supported by 100% of the people who were in the basement so I can't understand why it is discounted. Several of the witnesses are even on record backing the part of his own detailed story that the media wont publish which is that the basement explosions occured before the aircraft hit the tower. This is the only part that I don't accept as what he thought was the impact was probably a secondary explosion after impact which is backed up by a considerable number of firemen who reported explosions after. This a good example of why censorship of conspiracy theories is counterproductive as a perfectly reasonable explanation cant be presented because the original claim is buried because some POV warriors think it may be used to support the conspiracy theory. Wayne (talk) 04:45, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
"Rumble like someone moving furniture" has become "a massive explosion that pushed us upwards, the walls cracked, and the ceiling fell on us". I guess some folks might consider the first account an element of the second. Weregerbil (talk) 09:21, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Credibility tags

I can't tell from here whether the Deseret News is a general-circulation newspaper (usable as a source) or a Church newspaper, which would probably not be usable as a source. As for AE911Truth.org being used a source for the organization being notable, the flaws there are obvious. It being used as a source for the organization's existance is marginal. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:46, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

There was a full page article on them published by the ABC a few weeks ago detailing their beliefs and giving the most notable Australian members and their qualifications (one is arguably the foremost engineer in this country). I'll see if I can track it down. Wayne (talk) 08:52, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Deseret news was previously cited for "Eagar remarked, "These people (in the 9/11 truth movement) use the 'reverse scientific method.' So why whould we have a problem with it now.... Tony0937 (talk) 02:54, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Removed credibility tag on Deseret News, but with a caveat; they are not a scientific publication, so they cannot be considered reliable sources as to whether the online journal is question really is peer-reviewed. ae911truth is still not reliable for anything, but I'll give you some time to put together the mainstream (Australian) press article that has been claimed. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Is the Georgia State University Library a good enough reference for you? http://www.library.gsu.edu/news/index.asp?view=details&ID=14067&typeID=56
As far as the article goes here is what it says under "IMPORTANT TO KNOW FOR ALL LIBRARIANS". http://www.bentham.org/open/
  • All articles are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication.
  • All articles are available for you to read, download, copy, distribute, deposit in digital repositories and use (with attribution) in any way you wish. No permission is required for distribution, copying or commercial use of published articles. All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/)
  • All submitted articles undergo a fast but rigorous peer-review procedure, followed by prompt submission of an article for publication.
  • Authors publishing with Bentham Open retain the copyright to their work.
  • Authors can publish research, reviews and short communication articles.
  • Bentham Open offers affordable article processing fees, ranking amongst the lowest as compared to those of other open access journal publishers.
  • Publishing in an open access journal caters to an extensive audience allowing anyone with an interest in your work to read it and there by translate it into increased usage and impact.
  • All articles are deposited in at least one major international open digital repository (such as PubMed Central).
  • All articles are indexed by Google and Google Scholar which offers additional massive world wide web exposure.
  • Authors who wish to propose starting a new open access journal with Bentham Open, should contact us at oa@bentham.org
  • Authors and readers who have questions with regards to the submission of manuscripts or viewing of published articles with Bentham Open should contact us at oa@bentham.org
(The bolding is mine) Tony0937 (talk) 02:40, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Please not the word "articles" in the bolded sentence. In addition to articles, magazines publish other material too. Letters sections are common in journals. When the authors of a piece of text call it a letter, and a Mr. Tad Walch from Deseret News calls it something else in passing, whom do we believe? Weregerbil (talk) 08:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Mr. Tad Walch in Desert News refers to it boldly as His new peer-reviewed paper and as article in other place. There is no letter section distinguished in the journal itself. Letters are rarely, if ever, being reffered to as peer-reviewed. What "autors of a piece of text" do you have in mind and where can we see the quote you're refering to? salVNaut (talk) 17:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
You haven't seen the letter in question? The letter in question calls the letter a letter in the second sentence of the letter in question. Whom are we believing: a Mr. Tad Walch or the people who wrote the letter and call it a letter? Seriously now... Weregerbil (talk) 19:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh, not in the second sentence of the paper ("the letter" as you call it, which confused me a lot), but in the second sentence of the abstract, which I failed to notice before. Ok, got it now, that's something to think about. But your edit removed information about "peer-review", about which there is little doubt. See my last edit for compromise phrasing. salVNaut (talk) 14:40, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
The term article is generic. An article in this case is called a letter due to its length (six pages). If it was longer it would generally be called a essay (16 - 30) pages. A paper is generally of even greater length and can be selections of a larger theses or dissertations . Thesis are are book length documents and are generally not published in their entirety in a journal.
Some journals have commentary where someone respected in the field will comment on an article or articles (obviously not peer reviewed). There are also research reports (reports on the status of ongoing research) in peer reviewed journals that may or may not be peer reviewed. It is possible although unlikely that the letter by Jones et al falls in this category and was not peer reviewed. Ultimately what do we require to confirm for all of us that it is peer reviewed? Tony0937 (talk) 19:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Quite. Many peer-reviewed journals have "letters" and "essays" which are not peer-reviewed. Since the article calls itself a letter, we need to check the journal's review policy in detail to see if the article is reviewed. If it were in the "letters" section of a traditional scientific journal, it would not be peer-reviewed. As this is an online journal, it's hard to tell what what "section" it's in. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
The authors say that it was peer reviewed. You say you don't trust a RS source (Tad Walch) who says it was peer reviewed. This article from Australia refers to it as a "peer reviewed paper" I think that it was peer reviewed but I want to know what will take to definitively convince you so we can stop this. Tony0937 (talk) 22:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
No, Tad actually said the authors said it was peer-reviewed. The Australian article looks fringe, so we'd need to look closely to see if it was "news" (reliable) or "commentary" (reliable only if Hereward is). "Hereward", coincidentally, is the name of a banned editor here. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:49, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Shame on you [22]Tony0937 (talk) 04:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The "letter" was submitted for Peer Review not publication as a letter and the authors recived a letter back saying peer review had passed it which I believe they posted on their website (I think I posted the link here some time ago but can't remember the location now). If you have doubts we have to accept that IT IS peer reviewed as reliable sources say it is. Write the journal and ask for confirmation instead of arguing here. Wayne (talk) 07:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Backwards. If there are doubts, we don't accept it. Please show links to reliable sources. Be advised that this article is under ArbCom sanctions and that any sort of tendentious POV pushing can result in a topic ban. Jehochman Talk 07:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Don't make threats to advance your own view!! You are saying that if we doubt what several reliable sources say just because we personally don't believe it then it can be removed? Wayne (talk) 08:37, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I'll speak for myself, thanks. If there are doubts about the reliability of a source, we don't accept it. As for your editing, this article is under ArbCom sanctions. If you engage in battle-type behavior to advance fringe views, I will go to WP:AE and request that you be topic banned. This is your fair warning before that happens. Jehochman Talk 08:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Firstly the ABC is the most credible source in Australia. Secondly....You want to topic ban me just because I don't agree with you??????? I comply with WP guidlines and never engage in battle type behaviour. You can call responding to an unjustified threat whatever you like but I have the right to make good faith edits in both the topic and talk regardless of your own extreme POV opinions on what constitutes a tendentious edit. Wayne (talk) 08:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you are confused. We do not use second hand opinions, such as that of an ABC reporter, to determine if a source complies with our WP:V policy. We evaluate the proposed source directly. In this case, the source you propose fails to satisfy WP:V. My concern for your behavior is that you keep making the same arguments over and over again even when multiple good faith editors tell you that you are confused. Jehochman Talk 13:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Where do you get "you keep making the same arguments over and over again"? I have made the argument ONE time in total in regards this subject and you were the first editor to reply to that post. You say "We evaluate the proposed source directly" yet when I suggest you write to the source and ask them you claim it is tendentious editing! Is there any way to edit without accepting your POV that wont result in the risk of being banned? Wayne (talk) 15:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
If that article is an example of "the most credible source in Australia", there's a definite market niche (news reporting) that is open for reputable companies. Even the fair and balanced news program is more objective than that. </snide remark> As for the "peer-reviewed" "letter", we need to look closely, as "mainstream" scientific journals have different standards of peer-review for different articles. As it looks like a letter, it claims to be a letter, and letters are traditionally not peer-reviewed, we need a specific statement that letters are peer-reviewed in that journal. I'm reminded of a letter in Phys Rev Letters, dated 25 years in the future thanking tachyon researchers for their current researchers. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Seeing as no one else will take the trouble I contacted people myself. According to Bentham all letters must pass peer review or they won't be published. Jones letter was passed unanimously by the engineers assigned to review it. Wayne (talk) 16:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
In this light this seems to be the most accurate pharsing:
In April of 2008, a peer-reviewed letter by advocates of the demolition hypothesis was published in an online civil engineering journal. salVNaut (talk) 14:58, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Then why didn't you say that....? I changed your (previous) version to:
In April of 2008, a letter by advocates of the demolition hypothesis was published as a paper in an online peer-reviewed civil engineering journal.
Seens to cover all the basics of what we can confirm, although we need to add two more references, one to the journal, stating it's peer-reviewed, and one to the published paper itself, stating it's a letter. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:53, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
FYI The title "letter" is not meant in it's literal sense. According to Bentham any article 8 pages or less in length is classed as a letter (with the exception of mini review articles) but it still has to comply to the same rules as apply to an article. Wayne (talk) 16:45, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't see why the journal's classification of the article as "letter" is relevant, but that doesn't explain why the word "letter" appears in the article. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Please explain why you would think it is important. I think that the most logical reason to explain it is that they were influenced by Bentham's rule page. Tony0937 (talk) 21:03, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I made my previous edit and only then read Wayne's info, so I waited for others reactions. This web page may clarify a bit - it seems Bentham Open classifies published peer-reviewed papers into 4 categories (see end of the page). salVNaut (talk) 11:26, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Main Towers section

The last paragraph in this section has a very large error. It talks about the energy required for the dust clouds and then uses NIST's findings on the dust cloud to refute the conspiracy theory in regards to this. The problem is that conspiracy theorists NEVER link the energy to the dust clouds. The dust clouds are seen ONLY as possible evidence of squibs by them. The energy problem is that required to pulverise the concrete which I think NIST does not address. The paragraph needs a rewrite. I'd do it but it would only get reverted without it being brought up here first. Wayne (talk) 15:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the energy required for the dust clouds is not what the CDH people are saying, but the "energy required" to "pulverise the concrete" is not rationally subject to estimation, as far as I can see. Further comments? It appears that the mainstream dubunking is trying to hit an evasive target.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
This seems to be mostly accurate:
"The question of the source of the needed energy again arises. Hoffman (2003), focusing on the expansion of the North Tower’s dust cloud, calculates that the energy required simply for this expansion---ignoring the energy needed to slice the steel and pulverize the concrete and other materials---exceeded by at least 10 times the gravitational energy available." [23]
It looks to me that what the article says is what Griffin says. Please explain if you think differently. The two questions I have regarding this are: (1) Where does the figure for the available energy come from and is it accurate (2) What is the equivalent amount of thermate/thermite not TNT.
Hoffman paper states "However, FEMA's Building Performance Assessment Report gives an estimate: "Construction of WTC 1 resulted in the storage of more than 4 x 10^11 joules of potential energy over the 1,368-foot height of the structure. That is equal to about 111,000 KWH (kilowatt hours) per tower."[24] So there is a difference in what Hoffman is using (and Griffin is referencing) and what we are stating (9.7 x 10^12 to 4.2 X10^13 joules).Tony0937 (talk) 21:37, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
For further reference: 10^9 Joules = a gigajoule Gj and 10^3 Joules is kilojoule [25]. A ton of TNT is equal to 4.184 gigajoules (GJ).[26]. A thermite reation releases 851.5kJ/mol (Fe2O3 + 2Al ---> Al2O3 + 2Fe; ΔH = 851.5kJ/mol )[27]. What does a mole of thermite weigh? Tony0937 (talk) 22:33, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Using this calculator I found the following
1 mole of Fe2O3 = 159.692g
1 mole of Al = 26.981539g
So if I am correct in my calculations (159.692g + (2 x 26.981539g)) = 231.3655078g/mol.
There a 1000 grams in a kg so 1000/231.2655078 = 4.324034351308483366 moles of thermite per kg. Am I correct so far? Tony0937 (talk) 04:12, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Carrying the calculations further I get
4.234(moles/kilogram) * 853.5(kilojoules/mole) = 3613.72 kj/kg or 3.61372 * 10 ^ 6 j/kg and 3.61372 * 10 ^ 9 j/ton. This is actually less than what you get for TNT.
Could someone please check my math. Tony0937 (talk) 17:30, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems the paragraph is in need of a great deal of clarification. I was aware of the pulverising of concrete but not the dust cloud issue. Having now read Hoffmans paper there is no doubt it could pass a peer review if there was not a bias against accepting such articles. Hoffman makes no mention of conspiracy theories but concentrates solely on the math and verifiable physics which obviously uses the exact same sources as papers debunking CT's such as those by Russell and Scheuerman (and Hoffman comes up with the same results for the building itself). Where the contradicting papers fail is in not addressing the energy required for the dust cloud as additional to the concrete pulverisation but only as the result of air expelled from the buildings. In fact after also spending several hours reading papers debunking the CT's I find these papers also debunk Bazant's hypothesis making Bazant's inclusion in this article problematic (It seems he is probably included solely because his paper debunks the CT rather than any reliability of his work). Griffin supports explosives while Hoffman looks only at the energy required without making any suggestions as to it's origin and concludes that "The official explanation that the Twin Tower collapses were gravity-driven events appears insufficient to account for the documented energy flows" which is not a conspiracy theory by any stretch. As far as I can see from crosschecking, Hoffmans figures are accurate and verifiable. Wayne (talk) 08:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

My comment still stands. Even if the undocumented pulverisation claims are taken at face value, particularly as to the (noted as relevant) particle size, the energy estimates stated (in the clearly un'reliable http://www.911-strike.com/powder.htm ) may be within a factor of 100. (Beside, the distribution of particle size would be more important than the "average".) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 12:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Pulverisation is fairly well understood and even NIST came up with the same figures as Hoffman (he used NIST's 60 micron average despite evidence 10 was closer to reality, which requires even more energy). To pulverise the WTC to a 60 micron ave would take 1.5 kwh/ton and according to NIST the available energy was 0.7 kwh/ton. Although only half the amount needed this is within the range of error for particle size and agrees with Hoffman's numbers. What is not accounted for is the dust cloud as while you can say it is due to expelled air it still requires an energy input which Hoffman calculated was at least 10 times the energy available. Wayne (talk) 13:56, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Conspiracy theory

It has been discussed and agreed that this is an article about a conspiracy theory. A variety of single purpose accounts and editors who appear to be conspiracy theory advocates have been making edits to water down the statement that this is a conspiracy theory. As has been said many times, we do not determine whether bigfoot exists by polling bigfoot believers. We look to the reliable sources. Reliable sources say that Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center‎ is a fringe theory, a conspiracy theory. Wikipedia must label it as such to provide an accurate view to the reader. Those who militate against WP:A and WP:NPOV repeatedly will be warned and then I will request action at arbitration enforcement. Wikipedia is not the place to publicize original research, nor fringe theories. Jehochman Talk 03:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

How about following Wikipedia guidlines and AGF a bit more often instead of continually making threats which will only drive away legitimate editors. I checked back a few weeks and none of the editors you are accusing are single purpose accounts and their edits are not particularly controversial or in clear violation of the 911 arbitration. I also point out that conspiracy theory advocates are no more banned from editing than are official theory advocates as long as they follow the guidlines. The article edits have been relatively civil and vandal/POV free since the Arbcom, lets keep that way. Wayne (talk) 06:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
User:Bov is, I suppose, not exactly a 'single' purpose account, as he has two types of articles in which he has a fringe anti-consensus opinion. User:Go-here.nl is also not exactly a 'single' purpose account, as he also has two or three types of articles in which he has a fringe anti-consensus opinion as to article content. In fact, I can't think of a constructive edit from either of them, although they may have removed some actual vandalism from their articles of interest at times. What do you call editor who edits in only two unrelated types of articles? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 13:02, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Wasn't Bov already warned about this? --Haemo (talk) 21:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
"Editing toward a fringe anti-consensus opinion" is a single purpose, and not a good one. Jehochman Talk 21:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Bov and the other IP were warned. This one seems to me to be Bov, but it could be Go-here.nl, or NuclearZero (that was his signature, representing Nuclearsomething and ZeroFaults.)
My concern is that the edits were nothing excessive and a few were even nuetral. So what if some were POV? They were no more so than you would find in other unrelated articles and very easily fixed.As long as the bad edits are innocuous and revert war free assume good faith. The Arbcom was meant to make the articles "peaceful". The page remains peaceful so the best policy is to now treat it as any other page as long as it stays that way rather than as a war zone where no dissenting opinion is allowed. You can't jump on an editor because "it seems to be Bov". Even if he was warned that should not bar him from civil editing. Wayne (talk) 00:49, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, we can jump on an IP because it seems to be Bov, because Bov is subject to a 1RR/week, and has a tradition of editing under IP addresses. The detail of this second IP address includes a sequence around June 7 in a single article which runs Bov / Bov / IP / Bov / Bov / Bov in rapid succession. To get back to the article, it would be a conspiracy theory to assume that different IPs use a tag-team approach to edit the article. That Bov edits in under multiple IPs to avoid careful consideration of the edits is more likely. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:46, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Jehochman said "It has been discussed and agreed that this is an article about a conspiracy theory". I thought that this article is about the "Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center". What I want to know is why it is so important to call it a "conspiracy theory", could someone please clarify this for me. Its not like only a tiny minority is talking about it. For instance this has been seriously talked about in Japan's parliament and the Arizona Senate. Tony0937 (talk) 04:24, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Because that's how mainstream and reliable sources refer to this and other similar ideas. RxS (talk) 06:20, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
A more comprehensive answer for you Tony0937. Mainstream and reliable sources also call the official account a conspiracy theory but we dont use the term for that. However, if you read 911 WP articles in other languages you will find they do not consider conspiracy theories fringe or even call them conspiracy theories. They use the term "alternative theories" more often. They also give the LIHOP, the MIHOP and the official account all equal weight as conspiracy theories with insufficient proof to support any of them. WP relies on consensus backed by reliable sources and thus the English language WP tends to give US media and viewpoints undue weight. From an Americentric view the article is NPOV and we have to abide by the consensus. Wayne (talk) 13:58, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
WLRoss, I do not think your analysis is correct. The English Wikipedia includes large numbers of British, Canadian, and Australian editors, as well as editors from many other countries. Those who tendentiously push the pro-Truther POV will be banned from editing any 9/11-related articles. Jehochman Talk 14:05, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Be that as it may the English WP does give American viewpoints undue weight. I suggest you read the foreign language versions of the 911 conspiracy theories page. A simple test: I can tranfer reliably sourced material from those articles to ours. If it gets reverted then I am right. Wayne (talk) 14:29, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
It sounds as if you are trying to make a WP:POINT. Please don't. However, if you're familiar enough with the language to translate a sourced foreign language Wikipedia's comments, then it would probably be acceptable, provided it doesn't violate WP:UNDUE. The "mainstream" theory is just that — mainstream. Other theories are given more weight in the foreign press than here, but are still considered improbable theories. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:37, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
The "point" I was making was a comprehensive answer to Tony0937 as to why he can't make particular edits rather than just telling him he can't. As you say "Other theories are given more weight in the foreign press than here, but are still considered improbable theories". That is basically what I said. I'm not claiming that conspiracy theories are any more likely to be true because foreign countries treat the topic in a more NPOV way than we do. Wayne (talk) 15:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

There is no reliable evidence, none, that there was a conspiracy to demolish the towers, other than that by Al Qaeda. If you tendentiously try to insert obscure foreign sources that report fairy tales, I will take the matter straight to WP:AE. Wikipedia is not to be used as a platform for Truther propaganda. Also, know that Wikipedia itself is not to be used as a source, and we do not give authority to any decision made by other language versions. Jehochman Talk 15:28, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I would like to add that "foreign countries treat the topic in a more NPOV way than we do" is a lie. They just have different biases, but there's no real attempt to have what we call NPOV. We include some of those views already in the article, as seems appropriate. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:40, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
I advise Jehochman NOT to make threats or disrupt an otherwise civil talk page in support of his own tendentious POV or I will take the matter to WP:AE. Wayne (talk) 15:49, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't think Jehochman was being disruptive, he was just explaining his understanding of the situation. Also, in reply to Arthur Rubin, outside of the US, this subject is much less emotive, which makes being neutral easier. PhilKnight (talk) 19:34, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
>>there was a conspiracy to demolish the towers
I don't think anyone is really saying there was one. I think the primary point of the hypothesis is that the towers were demolished with explosives -- even a US civil engineering journal is now in agreement that the official story has holes that cannot be answered with the current explanations. These are scientific questions. Anything beyond that simple facts is what is being added to it through speculation. The hypothesis is necessarily scientific, not conspiratorial. Afterall, a civil engineering journal would not publish a murder mystery. They are merely interested in the science behind the hypothesis.
For all we know, someone installed the explosives with the hope of saving lives, rather than taking them. No one here really knows anything more than what the science is telling us. It's unfortunate that wikipedia continues the old trend of politics distorting science, setting us back to the Dark Ages by the need to attach political labels to the science they do not agree with. 152.131.10.133 (talk) 01:13, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
It's disputed whether that really is a reviewed US civil engineering journal. There is some evidence that the publisher included the letter or article, bypassing the editorial staff.
It appears to be the case that there are recognized unexplained anomalies in the mainstream explanation. However, there are considerably greater anomalies in the CD hypothesis. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
I'd be interested to see that evidence that the publisher included the letter or article, bypassing the editorial staff. -- do you have it? If it were true, my understanding is that the authors were led to believe differently. And I notice that in an interview of the Bentham Editorial Director, Matthew Hogan, he states, "All articles submitted to both Bentham Open and Bentham subscription journals are rigorously peer reviewed by at least three to four reviewers (one of whom has to be a member of the journal's editorial board)."[28] Locewtus (talk) 01:34, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
The evidence was pointed to in the talk page of another article. I can't find it, at the moment. Suffice it to say that even un-reliable, but generally credible, sources that Bentham journals are not peer-reviewed clearly overrides the publisher's and authors' statements. It's not as if they have a long, established, reputation which would require much evidence to overturn. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:34, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
Actually they do have a long, established, reputation as leaders in peer reviewed articles in chemistry and are highly thought of in the pharmacuetical industry. Many of their "un-reliable" journals (not the online ones) are in the top 100 science journals. The current problems for the online journals seems to be a result of computor generated mailing lists. Wayne (talk) 17:28, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
Bentham Open have acquired a reputation for spamming for editors and contributors, including in areas where they have no expertise whatsoever. Even the article Locewtus links to above says that psychologists were being invited to contribute papers on ornithology, health policy researchers were being invited to submit papers on analytical chemistry and economists were being invited to submit papers on sleep research or, even more oddly, invited to join the editorial board of educational journals. This particular journal has been around for about a year and has published a grand total of 9 articles - 4 written by members of the editorial board (who get a discount on the publication fee). A NASA researcher contacted the publisher and the editor-in-chief to enquire about the peer review process and learned that the review was handled by the publishers and not the editorial board, and that the editor-in-chief wasn't even able to find out who reviewed the letter. ([29], p.263) Bentham Open have released hundreds of open access journals and they all need reviewers and contributors, so they're probably happy to publish anything they can get their hands on. Furthermore, the letter was only submitted at all as part of a campaign by conspiracy theorists to make their cause seem more legitimate, and 4-5 of their submissions were rejected by other journals before they found one that was prepared to publish it.[30] Other things published by Bentham may well be reliable, but the Open Access group of journals aren't, and we should remove references to them from this article. Hut 8.5 18:29, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Selective reporting makes the claim biased. Many of the invitations to submit outside of expertise were form letters with no names indicating to whom it was addressed to. If Bentham were "happy to publish anything they can get their hands on" I'd expect more than "9 articles" which is actual quite high as Bentham claim they publish up to 5 per month in the established online journals and around that many a year for the newer ones so that claim has to be WP:OR (other online (accepted as a RS) journals have a similar article rate). Other journals also allow submissions by their boards so this can't be used to negate reliability. Reliability must be based on what is actually published and not on critism of their spam. What articles have they published that are rejected by the scientific community? How many of these are there? You also fail to mention that 911 conspiracy submissions were not rejected by established journals because of content or a failure to pass peer review but due to subject. Many supporters have claimed they refuse to submit anything because they believe that it would end their career. Wayne (talk) 06:23, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
There are so many academics reporting this that there is bound to be some truth in the allegations, especially as Bentham have actually apologised to one academic and admitted they should not have sent them emails (after he threatened to sue them).[31] Submissions by the board is not necessarily bad, but to consider that almost half of all their articles were written by members of the board, combined with the fact that board members get a discount on the publishing fee, suggests they are acting as a vanity press for the editorial board. If supporters of the hypothesis really are scared to publish in peer reviewed journals in case it will end their career it demonstrates how the hypothesis is regarded by the mainstream engineering community, and hence we should give it less weight in this article. Unsolicited spam for editors is not a tactic associated with reputable journals. You have claimed on another article's talk page that one of the articles submitted by supporters of the hypothesis was rejected due to the subject, but that still leaves 3-4 unaccounted for and I can't believe the supporters deliberately submitted that many to irrelevant journals. You haven't answered the problem that the publisher bypassed the editorial board to get this article included. Hut 8.5 20:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

As I said before, you can't use the spam alone to determine reliability. almost half submitted by the board is statisically insigificant when we are talking about four articles in a new journal and board members getting a discount is a common practice. I should have been more clear when I said "scared to publish". From the albeit limited number of engineers who made this comment it is clear it has nothing to do with acceptance by the mainstream engineering community but to the loss of funding from the government. These people point out that virtually all supporters of the official theory are dependent on such funding and several who publicly supported alternative theories have had it withdrawn. If you look at the discipline of Physics in the engineering community (which is the science most closely related to 911 issues) more than 90% of Physicists are reliant on government funding to support their careers. The claim that the publisher bypassed the editorial board rests on a third party blog reporting a claim by an editor who was hired after the article was published and as Bentham has consistantly claimed all their articles have passed review the claim can't be held as reliable without supporting evidence. The claims of untreliability would not pass WP guidelines for an article and we shouldn't either unless reliable sources can be found. Wayne (talk) 06:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Why can't you use spam to help determine reliability, when there is very little independent evidence of reliability?
Almost half was "4 of 9", and the article in question wasn't included, correct? Perhaps not significant.
However, the claims of reliability are only from Bentham and authors, not even from the editorial board. We can and must use unreliable sources to help determine reliability, when there are no reliable sources that the publication is reliable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 12:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Why can't we use the fact that Bentham's subscription journals are highly regarded as evidence of reliability? "We can and must use unreliable sources to help determine reliability, when there are no reliable sources that the publication is reliable". It is interesting that this arguement is repeatedly rejected when used for conspiracy sources. Wayne (talk) 15:11, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Why? Because there's no reason to believe that their subscription journals have the same standards as their open journals, and I'm not entirely sure their subscription journals are "highly regarded".
And what do you mean "repeatedly rejected when used for conspiracy sources"? What "open source" journals from nominally reputable publishers have been considered? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:43, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
The spam allegations do have relevance to the journal's reliability. Suppose the letter was reviewed by an ornithologist, or someone else equally unable to judge its quality? If Bentham really are a reputable publisher, why is a professor at the University of California advocating that people who subscribe to its editorial board have this counted against their prospects for promotion? [32] We can't solely use sources meeting WP:RS to decide whether other sources do, because otherwise we would not be able to cite any sources at all (as we would end up in a chicken and egg type situation). Anyway, the sources indicating unreliability aren't random websites, they are written by academics, researchers and journalists and we can give them a degree of credibility, especially as nobody is advocating adding these sources to the article. Hut 8.5 20:02, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Is there RS evidence the letter was reviewed outside the area of expertise? Why do we reject the credibility of academics, researchers and journalists for conspiracy blogs but find it acceptable for blogs critising Bentham? If Bentham only used online journals then reliability can be based on the spam and critism but you have to weigh it against the good reputation their subscription journals enjoy. Wayne (talk) 04:52, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Yet again, I am not advocating that this letter be cited in the article. In fact if we insist on using article-standard sources about Bentham's reliability, we have to conclude that it isn't reliable because none have commented on it. Hut 8.5 06:55, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Now PLoS Journals can also be deemed not fit for wikipedia -- see this Nature article. This shows the difficulties faced by any online journal, but does that make the science published in it not science?
Public Library of Science (PLoS), the poster child of the open-access publishing movement, is following an haute couture model of science publishing — relying on bulk, cheap publishing of lower quality papers to subsidize its handful of high-quality flagship journals.
67.170.205.8 (talk) 16:16, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Engineering community again

"Rejected by the engineering community"?? I have to apologize here, but I'd like to be referred to the clause in Wikipedia's guidelines that encourages or even permits articles, especially the introductory articles, of instructing the reader as to the prevalent opinions of presumed "communities" of authority ("engineering community", "scientific community", "media community"), and permits such blatant partiality to be upheld as supported by any single article. If there has been a thorough poll of the said "community" with equal representation of all practising professionals rather than professionals employed to 'deliver answers', then perhaps Wikipedia would be right in relaying that prevalent opinion, with the poll in question being the only valid citation. Otherwise, if a single article is sufficient citation to justify expressing an individual's opinion as 'the opinion of the community', while any minority opinion is mandatorily subjected to slander such as 'conspiracy theory', 'allegations', and 'claims', then I think the merits of Wikipedia as an impartial source of information would be nonexistent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.93.55.70 (talk) 21:11, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Mainstream and reliable sources reject this theory. We're not instructing readers, we are reporting what reliable sources have to say about the topics we include. RxS (talk) 21:25, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I strongly belive that you are overestimating the degree of consensus which you claim exists in the engineering community. You did not bother to either refer me to the section of Wikipedia's guidelines that endorses 'reporting' of prevalent opinions, especially in the introductory paragraphs, nor did you elaborate on your sources as to 'mainstream and reliable sources' rejecting the theory. Perhaps you are referring to the formal 'investigations' conducted on the matter under the sponsorship of the state - to consider such sources reliable you would have to take great care to ignore the conflict of interest of a state-sponsored investigation of foul play wherein the state stands to be implicated; you need to be extremely naive to believe that no pressure would be exerted on investigators in that scenario. Before anyone undoing the edit, do me a favour and visit the highly relevant website of the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, www.ae911truth.net, where several hundred practising U.S. professionals (perhaps not considered 'mainstream and reliable' by you) are risking their professional credibility and livelihood to explain the science behind the demolition process in depth to the public, in an attempt to shed light on the truth. Lastly, since when is it Wikipedia's mandate to 'report' on current events, complete with opinions? Perhaps if such an encyclopedia existed in the early 1930's, you would have reported favourably on Hitler's domestic policy; or would have reported favourably on Osama Bin Laden and Taliban for bravely combatting the USSR in the 1980's? Stick to the facts. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zinbielnov (talk • contribs) 02:16, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Futhermore, I noticed that the citation used in the generalization about rejection by the engineering community comes from an article entitled "Conspiracy Theories and Arrested Development" from an Epistemology journal??? An openly biased philosophical opinion article makes an appeal to authority, and Wikipedians assume that the philosopher did his homework, so that's good enough?? As I said originally, if you have done sufficient research to have polls of professionals at your disposal as citations, then go right ahead and use them. I find it heinous that I have to expend this much effort to change a sentence whose foundations lay in not even a single professional engineering report, but in a philosophy essay.
Well according to RS [33] [34] There is support for the CDH within the the engineering community. So "rejected by the engineering community" is a false statement. Tony0937 (talk) 02:41, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
As in Wikipedia, consensus in the real world does not require unanimity. I don't think that source is adequate to contradict the obvious fact that the consensus of the engineering community is that controlled demolition is unnecessary and insufficient to account for the destruction/collapse of the World Trade Center. The statement Zinbielnov/65.93.55.70 replaced the sourced statement that the engineering community rejects CDH is unsourced and improbable. If he were to have deleted the statement from the lead, I might consider that to be at least in good faith, although still in violation of the ArbComm ruling. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:46, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
That's right, consensus isn't unanimity here or in the real world. No one outside a very tiny, vocal minority has any use for CHD and we need to reflect that here. RxS (talk) 03:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Rx Strangelove, please cite your sources. You are making value judgements of the worst sort, as well as discouraging junior members of Wikipedia such as myself from contributing, without explaining yourself. I was busy asking Arthur Rubin for the same consideration - he slandered me, implying I was not editing in good faith, and cited an "ArbComm ruling" with which I am clearly not meant to be familiar, nor does he seem to intend to remedy that. As I previously contended, if you are infact correct as to the prevalence of opinion on this topic, the relevant citation needs to come from a reliable poll, and certainly not from a Philosophy journal. If I am indeed wrong to intend the removal of this opinion sentence, please at least afford me the right to be informed why. I don't see why Wikipedia editors seem to enjoy their position of authority to the extent that you, RxStrangelove, and Arthur Rubin are exemplifying here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zinbielnov (talk • contribs) 03:08, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
A touchy edit but I must partially agree. It is undeniable that mainstream and reliable sources reject the theory and it is correct to say this in the lead. It is less clear that the engineering community does because there have been no polls and this is claimed based on opinion only and mostly by those outside the community. It is also unclear as to what it is about CD the engineering community rejects. I doubt very much if reject is the right word to use as it is unscientific to reject something without evidence and it would be more correct to say the engineering community regard CD as having a low probability or is unlikely. It is also undeniable that the engineering community does not support the official theory in its entirety yet the wording is always slanted to imply it rejects all conspiracy theories. The weakness lies with Wikipedia where edits in controversial articles can be decided by consensus rather than reliability. This article is actually reasonably balanced apart from some omissions and semantic bias. Wayne (talk) 05:23, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
No, the problem is where the content of articles is determined by the number of editors pushing a particular POV and their determination to see it included and not the opinions of experts. Peer-reviewed journals (I exclude Bentham here) haven't published anything supporting the hypothesis, and they have published several papers attacking it. If there was debate in the engineering community as to whether the hypothesis was correct, this debate would be reflected in academic literature, and we could write an article looking something like dark matter. Zinbielnov, you can read the ArbCom ruling at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/September 11 conspiracy theories. Hut 8.5 07:08, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
You say no yet "the problem is where the content of articles is determined by the number of editors pushing a particular POV" is exactly what I said. You can't use the claim that "debate would be reflected in academic literature" because the literature does not accept articles on alternative theories so there can be no public debate. That there is considerable private debate is clear from the number of engineers involved and the low quantity and quality of articles supporting the official theory that have been published. In fact there is not a single widely accepted paper supporting either view which is highly unusual for a theory supposedly free of debate. The only paper that comes close to widely accepted is the NIST which was never peer reviewed. For some reason many supporters of the official theory have the ridiculous idea that accepting there is a debate equates to an admission of credibility for conspiracy theories when the reality is that it's the only way to discredit them. Wayne (talk) 13:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
BTW...why is it that every time Zinbielnov requests a citation to support a claim made in the lead he is warned of the ARBCom decision? Surely a requirement for citations was not recinded for 911 articles by the ARBCom. Wayne (talk) 13:52, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Wayne is being tendentious. "Every time"? Huh? Zinbielnov has in total about a dozen edits. The lede does not require any citations when it summarizes material covered further down in the article that has citations. Jehochman Talk 14:05, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

So you're saying that the fact that the engineering community isn't vigorously debating the cause of the collapse of the World Trade Center means they all accept a theory that hasn't been substantiated in peer-reviewed journals? No - they aren't vigorously debating it because they all know why it collapsed and that cause has nothing to do with controlled demolition. This can be confirmed by the fact that published papers support the mainstream viewpoint (and yes, there are papers - the article cites them). The NIST report passes WP:RS because 200 world-renowned experts were involved in its production, and nobody is disputing this. There are plenty of reliable sources that have debunked conspiracy theories - Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, Der Spiegel, an MIT professor, the BBC (and before you ask I am not referring to their upcoming documentary on 7 WTC). Accepting that there is a debate is indeed a concession when there isn't one. Proposing to include these claims prominently violates WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. Hut 8.5 19:17, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Where did you get all that from what I said? Nowhere did I say engineers all accept any theory. I said we don't know how many support what theory. Nowhere did I say there were no papers, I said that what there is is of low quality. For example Bazant admits in his summary that he could be wrong "by an order of magnitude" and NIST concluded it couldn't explain the collapse past it's initiation. No where did I say NIST was not a RS, I said it was not peer reviewed. Nowhere did I say there were no RS debunking conspiracy theories and I actually accept most as good articles with the exception of Popular Mechanics which is obviously flawed and outside their area of expertise. Nowhere did I ask to "include these claims prominently", I asked that a source be supplied that there is no debate. Wayne (talk) 05:32, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
The collapse can be fairly summarized, based on reliable sources, as: heavy jets loading with highly inflammable fuel crashed into the buildings starting fires and causing structural damage which resulted in the buildings collapsing. I would not expect the engineers to be able to come up with a precise model of what happened beyond all doubt. There was no opportunity to fully survey the damage before the structures collapsed. There was no way to directly measure the extent of the fires because conditions were horrible and time was short. There is no way to conduct a controlled experiment where we build a few dozen towers and collapse them to see exactly what happens. (Auto companies crash cars to see how they perform. We can't do that with buildings.) We have incomplete information about what happened, so we end up with an incomplete model. It is sloppy logic to jump from "incomplete data" to "there is controversy over what happened". Jehochman Talk 13:36, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
But there is controversy over what happened. As Wayne pointed out NIST couldn't explain the collapse past it's initiation and NIST rejected the Pancake collapse scenario proposed by other RS. We also have RS saying that there is support for the CDH, so saying that there is a consensus within the community about what caused the collapse is incorrect. Tony0937 (talk) 14:30, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
I can't follow your logic at all. As far as I know, no reliable source has ever said that 9/11 was caused by anything except Al Qaeda's attack with airplanes. It is a most severe a violation of WP:BLP to suggest that the owner of WTC (a living person) killed thousands of his own tenants. There is no reliable sourcing whatsoever to suggest that as the cause. Jehochman Talk 14:38, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
You are jumping to conclusions. I am not pointing the finger of blame at anyone. I am just looking at the facts as presented by the RS that we have. Tony0937 (talk) 15:48, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
If there is controversy, as you say, then there must be plausible allegation that somebody else besides Al Qaeda was responsible for the demolition. Who do you want to implicate, and do you have a reliable, non-fringe source? I am awaiting this information. If you make an exceptional claim against a living person, you better have exceptional evidence. Jehochman Talk 16:44, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Your logic is along the lines of "Theory A is wrong, therefore theory B must be right". The NIST rejecting the pancake theory does not lend any credibility whatsoever to the controlled demolition hypothesis, especially since NIST rejected it as well. Hut 8.5 16:56, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
As far as I know the majority of CD supporters are concerned with the CD only and do not name anyone as responsible. Tony0937 didn't claim that NIST rejection of the pancake theory equates to acceptance of CD. I can follow his logic easily as it is basic scientific methodology. If an unknown number of experts support proposition A and an unknown number of experts support proposition B then there is no consensus unless the unknowns can be defined (A&B is a simplification as most probably actually support C or D etc). This can be defined by a RS indicating what these numbers are which is all this section is concerned with. Such a RS will end this discussion without the need to read into any editors comment claims he is not making. Wayne (talk) 05:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Tony is trying to use the fact that there is "controversy" over the pancake theory to get the CDH included, which is faulty logic for the reason I pointed out above - the pancake theory has no relevance here whatsoever. The number of experts on each side can be determined by the fact that there are many reliable sources which accept the mainstream account of events but none which support the CDH. --Hut 8.5 06:48, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
None??? We do have RS that there is support for CDH [35] [36] within the engineering community. Tony0937 (talk) 15:38, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
We have RS that there is support for CDH, but not from within the engineering or scientific communnities. (Whether bentham-open is an RS is disputed. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:52, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I beg your pardon 'Peer review' is not a requirement for RS. The dispute with bentham is about whether or not the article was peer reviewed. even if it was not peer reviewed it still remains RS Tony0937 (talk) 16:28, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
You've apparently misread the dispute on bentham-open. The question is not merely whether it's peer-reviewed, but whether it is essentially self-published. There has been an allegation that the publisher included the letter, bypassing editorial review. If that's the case, then it's the personal opinion of the publisher and possibly the authors. Nothing reliable there. The authors may be in the engineering community, I suppose.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:45, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Here are the authors of the Bentham paper:

  • Steven E. Jones, American physicist best known for work on nuclear fusion. Now retired early because of his promotion of the CDH.
  • Frank Legge, a chemist working for an Australian consulting company.
  • Kevin Ryan, a lab director who used to work for Environmental Health Laboratories Inc. before he was fired because of his advocacy of the CDH.
  • Anthony Szamboti, who does have an engineering qualification (just a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, which isn't quite the right sub-discipline anyway). Holds a patent for a system of supporting antennas, but hasn't actually published anything aside from the Bentham article.
  • James Gourley, an attorney.

I can't see any reason why we should consider the views of these people as representative of the engineering community, or any reason that we should regard them as authoritative in the field of engineering. The Bentham source therefore fails WP:RS. Hut 8.5 19:18, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. This is not a reliable source. Jehochman Talk 20:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
The really laughable thing here is the absurd arguments that wikipedia "administrators" will come up with to block anyone from knowing anything was published about this theory. Suddenly, a online journal has to "prove" it conducts peer review (it's not enough that they claim they do). Suddenly,working engineers don't count, only academic ones who have published with a university. And people with patents don't count -- anyone can publish a patent, right? Even a housewife. And people who were hired by UL in a management position don't count, only those who have a PhD and have worked at UL. Or would that be a widely published PhD working at UL? What would count as published "enough"? Funny, I thought information was just . . . information. But I guess when one little letter needs to be kept away from the eyes of the public so hard, someone must be doing something right. 67.170.205.8 (talk) 00:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
No, working engineers and academic engineers in a different field don't count. Neither the UL guy's experience or training was in the relevant field of engeneering. (That he was management is probably not relevant.) And a "new" journal's peer-review policy cannot be treated as given by the publishers, especially if there are reports that the policy is not being followed. I wouldn't go so far as to say that a patent is no indication of credibility or reliability, but it's not much of one. (I have a patent, and I was involved in a few challenges to patents for obviousness or for prior art.) I suppose that the letter might be a reliable source for the fact that it was written, but it shouldn't be given more credibility than it deserves. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:38, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
So a working engineer who publishes a paper doesn't count as "an engineer." 152.131.10.133 (talk) 23:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
Not always. 63.231.178.198 (talk) 23:55, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

What a great example of the absurdity of wikipedia. Engineers only count when they are affiliated with a university, but not when they are working engineers? I guess we should all be concerned about any building that a working engineer signs off on then? The suggestion is that a working engineer doesn't understand engineering, but an academic one does. 67.170.205.8 (talk) 00:00, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Not wxactly. None of the ones specifically mentioned are working as engineers; they're working, and they may be engineers, but they're not working as engineneers. Some academics wouldn't qualify as "working engineers", either. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:07, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
Talk about Weaseling, this is ridiculous. There is no precedence for this kind of obfuscation. Anthony Szamboti IS an engineer and no amount of wikilawyering is going to change that. We also have RS that talks about AE911Truth [37]
At the time of writing, 357 architectural and engineering professionals have signed a petition which directly challenges the National Institute of Standards & Training's official finding that the destruction of these massive buildings was caused solely by structural damage from the impact of jet airliners and the resulting fires.
The petition, demanding of Congress a truly independent investigation, states, in part:
"...the 9/11 investigation must include a full inquiry into the possible use of explosives that may have been the actual cause behind the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers and WTC Building 7."
There is also William Rice, Civil Engineer,[38] Who called it "The politically unthinkable theory". Ignoring The facts do not make them go away and the fact is that there is support for this hypothesis in the engineering community. Tony0937 (talk) 18:03, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
The level of support is tiny. There are over 83,000 registered architects registered to the American Institute of Architects, and you don't need to be a member to sign the petition, so 357 really isn't that many. Saying that "the hypothesis is rejected by the engineering community" doesn't mean that absolutely every engineer rejects it. Hut 8.5 18:39, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

BBC article and documentary

Does this add anything new, or is it being placed so prominently on their website because there are links to the upcoming documentary in it? See here, here, here, and here (a blog by the series producer that has attracted a fair amount of comment). More can be seen here, here and here. There is even a pop quiz here. The previous program (on 9/11) , from the first series, is mentioned here, with more links from there to here and here and here. Those last links are outside the scope of this specific article, though they may be relevant to the other 9/11 conspiracy articles. I might actually watch the documentary tomorrow, but (like when I watched An Inconvenient Truth and some of the Michael Moore films), I'm wary of approaching things the wrong way and being misled. Is reading Wikipedia'a article on this any better or worse than watching a documentary on it? Maybe something that should be discussed here (can anyone link to discussions about the previous documentary and how use of that as a source was handled)? Carcharoth (talk) 08:56, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, just a note, we don't have anything much on the BBC series called The Conspiracy Files, but we do have an article on the US series of the same or similar name. Someone might want to make sure that there are separate articles if people start linking to that. I note that there are two documentaries already mentioned in this article: America Rebuilds and Zeitgeist, the Movie. On that basis, is it worth mentioning this documentary anywhere in this article, once it has been broadcast? Or do we wait to see what the reaction to it is? I find it interesting that the producer blogged about it before the BBC broadcast - has it been broadcast elsewhere already? I get that impression from the comments about "last night's film" - has it already been broadcast in the US? I also found Loose Change (film), which is mentioned in the templates on this article, but not in the text of this article. Should this article mention what the 9/11 conspiracy movies/documentaries say about this theory or event? Or not? Carcharoth (talk) 09:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, one more thing, the official name for this documentary appears to be: The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 - The Third Tower. And it should be emphasised that although it fits under this article, it focuses on WTC 7, not on the theories concerning the main two towers. Well, I presume it does. I guess I'll find out tomorrow. I also posted something at Talk:9/11 conspiracy theories#The Conspiracy Files (BBC documentary series). Carcharoth (talk) 09:17, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Forgot to follow this up. I found the BBC documentary interesting. It let people say things in their own words, but in the end, by the implication and the way it ended, it came down fairly squarely on the side of those saying that there was no conspiracy. It covered a fair amount of ground and a fair number of the arguments, and did a good job of presenting the various points. It certainly left me wondering just why consipracy theories are so pervasive in today's society - something about being unable to prove a negative I think, but maybe also something to do with the relationship between some of the American people and their government and the media. I'm sure it will be studied by sociologists for generations to come. Carcharoth (talk) 19:51, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Carcharoth. This looks like a fair secondary source to this article. I think that most aired BBC documentaries can be used as a source without a problem. I'll watch it soon and think what might goes in. Do you have an edit to propose? salVNaut (talk) 23:57, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Not really. I'd suggest a short sentence in this article, remembering to make clear the distinction between this documentary and the one they did in season one on the "9/11 conspiracy" as a whole. What I'd be more interested in is a well-written article on the films and documentaries about 9/11, not one of those "it was mentioned here" lists, but a timeline of the major films and documentaries and brief descriptions of the more notable ones and the reactions to them. It is the timeline aspect that a category can never really do. Carcharoth (talk) 05:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
We do already have September 11, 2001 attacks in popular culture though it's effectively a list of everything that has ever mentioned 9/11 rather than a coherent article. Perhaps it could be cleaned up though. Hut 8.5 20:31, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm thinking more "literature" or "secondary sources" on 9/11, rather than "popular culture". Joan of Arc bibliography is not very good (though it is a good start), Historiography of the French Revolution is another similar type of article. There may one day be a historiography of this period of history, but for now (being so close to the event), a bibliography will be the most I think that is possible. Carcharoth (talk) 23:11, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

An article by CDH proponents published in a peer-reviewed journal

Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: evidence for energetic materials by Kevin R. Ryan, James R. Gourley, Steven E. Jones. Available for open access, published in The Environmentalist, Online First edition. salVNaut (talk) 12:45, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I can't prove it's peer-reviewed, nor can I find a specific reference to it being peer-reviewed anywhere on Springer's web sites, but Springer is generally a good source. It should be noted, however, that the editorial guidelines suggest some bias. I lean toward inclsion in this article, and removal from 7WTC. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:45, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Original research to try to force a viewpoint

How interesting that published papers in established journals with reviewers must prove themselves worthy of wikipedia but original research conducted by a person with no credentials at all, a known attacker of the 9/11 truth movement, has no such standards of proof, but need only be described as "a poll," with zero indications of the attacks this person engages in regularly as a "debunker". No polling agency is necessary, no notability, no credentials, no peer review, no publishing in a mainstream news organization, nothing, as long as it can make a claim that the editors want made.

"A 2007 survey of members of the 9/11 Truth Movement found that 35% of members believe that the Twin Towers were brought down by controlled demolition, while 42% believe that World Trade Center 7 was brought down by a controlled demolition.[32]"

This is what wikipedia is all about -- double standards. Can't imagine why.152.131.10.133 (talk) 20:58, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

It's certainly more reliable than the so-called "mainstream" polls, Bov. And who else is going to poll the 911TM than a "truther" or a "debunker". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:32, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
"It's certainly more reliable than the so-called "mainstream" polls" Can I quote you on that? 152.131.10.133 (talk) 23:52, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
On the same subject. Editors keep adding "what they would consider" to the last paragraph of the lead. The reason given for adding it is that NIST is inerrant which is clearly false. Without a RS this is OR and POV pushing which is a violation of the 911 Arbcom ruling. To put it in perspective it is no different to me altering the first sentence of the lead to read "The controlled demolition hypothesis is what some would consider a 9/11 conspiracy theory". Wayne (talk) 15:22, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
Two of us have proposed changes: "requested changes" is neutral, and my "filed Requests for Correction" seems appropriate, as a formal term of the art. Your version clearly implies that "correction" is the correct word, which is, of course, clearly wrong. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:54, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
And, as a followup to anon/Bov, it's more reliable than a mainstream poll of the truth movement would be. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:59, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
The sentence is making no claim and as a statement of fact is correct as it stands. Adding unsourced words to make a fact conform to the editors own POV is not allowed. "Corrections' is probably a majority albeit marginal viewpoint anyway as NIST has made corrections and at least one as a result of that request; also several times NIST says a result is only an estimate so these would be corrected as more information comes to light so there is nothing overtly POV in the current wording. POV pushing goes both ways. I have no problem with the article leaning to the official account, as long as the bias is not too blatant and doesn't stray from the facts. Wayne (talk) 16:28, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
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