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New Page Patrol

I was doing new page patrol and ran across this: [1]. Good.

By the way, I've proposed a new page patrol competition and am looking for people to sign up. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:28, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. As you know, I've got a few things to do first. --Abd (talk) 13:38, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

UofA section #1356234 ..

Hi!  :-). Eh, question, did you ever get an answer from UofA (I recall you sent them mails)? Let me guess: No, they are too busy with promoting their marginally notable organisation. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Special:AbuseFilter/36. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:29, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, AGF is a good idea in general, not just for registered editors! However, as you know, AGF doesn't mean that we don't take a firm stand, it merely means that we avoid assuming a bad motive, at the same time as we act to protect the encyclopedia from inappropriate edits. UofA is an ambitious school, it is very difficult to get something like that going legitimately.
Consider this: they have competitors and disgruntled "customers," as do we. We really don't know that the IP edits are coming from someone hired by them. How about this: they hired an SEO, then realized that it was a mistake and refused to pay. The SEO says, okay, if that's the way they will be, we will still do this part of our job. The part that gets them blacklisted.
My point is not that this is what is happening, necessarily, but that it could be happening, and we shouldn't get our pants twisted over imagining the evil spammers, fangs dripping with the innocent blood of unsuspecting readers. We simply protect. Professional police, the healthy ones, that's what they do. They will be nice to you as they cart you off to jail, and will only harm you to protect themselves or others (including you) if you attack them physically. Friend of mine gave the finger to a cop who had given him a speeding ticket and wasn't nice about it. Dangerous? Yes. Some police aren't professional. However, all that happened was that the officer turned red, steamed a little, then got back in his patrol car and drove off. My friend is a lawyer and ex-cop. If the officer had been unprofessional, probably that would have been the end of that officer's career. But it's not clear that the citing officer knew that.
The UofA site is now blacklisted except for the home page. That's fine. If a need appears for another page, it can be whitelisted, and if it appears that the risk of spamming is over, the whole site might be delisted. But I'd see two conditions necessary for that. One would be explicit acknowledgment from the school that they will cooperate with efforts to stop linkspam or inappropriate editing on their behalf, and the other would be that a need has appeared as shown by another whitelisted page that is actually used and stable. Otherwise it's not worth considering.
Thanks for discussing this. It's a good example, actually. How much harm was done by delisting? Very little, I'd say, most of the "wasted time" was spent discussing process, which isn't wasted if it leads to more efficient process in the future. --Abd (talk) 14:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
True. Though if they do not reply, I suspect that they did not (yet) say that the SEO should stop (but we will never know). If the SEO will go on after not being payed that would be a Joe Job .. with different things to do with it. I think I will now shift from blacklisting/revertlisting to using the abuse filter (just see how it goes and if it works properly). I think it can keep out a lot of collateral damage (and when I see the filter is working in this case, we can again consider to de-blacklist the whole site)! --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:12, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Given the lack of response from UofA so far, I would put anything to do with them way on the back burner. I also posted to User talk:Amithani which is almost certainly an account of one of the corporate officers. No response. So, basically, do the minimum, as little as nothing. There is no demonstrated need for a link to other pages besides the home page; until someone needs that and requests it, the status quo is just fine. As you know, I'd like to semiprotect the whitelist page, plus, probably, routinely deny requests from obvious SPAs there, even if they aren't automatically prevented from making a request on that page. A new page would be set up for whitelisting requests from IP or new editors or SPAs, and admins wouldn't even need to look at this page. A registered user, not an SPA, would need to approve one of those requests and transfer it to the regular whitelisting page. Requests on the IP/blacklist page would be routinely denied without prejudice if no registered non-SPA account appears to close them by transfer. Essentially, they would be autoarchived. End of need to respond to obviously bad whitelist requests. Delisting should be requested as a whitelist request for the entire site. Again, less fuss for blacklist volunteers. A registered user, not an SPA, closing a whitelist request, would transfer it to a section to be implemented by an admin; certain users would become known as reliable to certain admins, who would probably routinely implement these requests with little fuss. The focus of the whitelist is content, not linkspamming or spam. Content is more important than preventing spam, and only if some conflict appears would there need to be a broader discussion. And in a case like that, it's quite likely that some more intelligent response -- such as a bot -- would be best instead of the blunt instrument of blacklist/whitelist.
As an example, suppose some class of edit, identifiable by bot, happens often, often enough that some substantial percentage of these edits is a bad edit (more than half?). But some of them might be good. If they are bot-reverted, and this is flagged in some way, the edits can be taken back in very quickly and efficiently. Poor man's Flagged Revisions, actually, requiring some kind of "sighting" to get possibly problematic content into mainspace. Bot operation is subject to consensus and the usual safeguards. We need both efficiency and intelligent decision, minimally disruptive, regarding content.
What this would do is to create a default exclusion of certain kinds of material. So what if, perhaps, good material is excluded? Suppose nobody is paying attention, and a good edit is missed, that could easily happen with a class of edits where most of them are bad, as with a spam filter, where an isolated good mail that happens to trigger the edit gets missed in the flood of garbage. What it would taken, then, is for some IP editor who wants to get this edit in -- and the bot can automatically notify -- to ask a regular editor to fix it. Any regular editor willing to take responsibility. A user category could make it easy to find editors willing to do this review. The vast majority of real spammers or vandals won't even bother asking, it would be a fast way to get blocked.
The key is to harness the broad community, to spread the load, to make it easy. The result would be not only more efficient, but more clearly reflect broad consensus. --Abd (talk) 16:44, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I indeffed the users, but am expecting new users any minute .. the nice thing about the abuse filter is that even if an edit is blocked, we can see what was attempted. And then the filter can be adapted to allow for such edits, or to do the edit. It is in any form way less bitey then indeed blacklisting links, protecting pages or blocking editors (in which case we would never see if good edits were attempted). The rule I applied was deemed too broad, but I am going to try and put it back in a slightly different form, I think. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:26, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I have enabled warning in Special:AbuseFilter/36. Editors in the two used ranges, and unestablished editors now get MediaWiki:Abusefilter-advertising, having the choice still to save the edit. If they persist, I am going to tweak the system, create a second rule that blocks the edits from the IPs, and from specific users on these articles. It would in all cases be less disruptive than blocking the accounts, protecting the article or blacklisting the links (and I am curious if the filter can be used to do this in a proper way too, it could help us with a lot of problems in the future). --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:30, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

You know, the guidelines and instructions for the blacklist pages suggest that measures short of blacklisting should be used, including the use of bots. So, congratulations on going that way. Bot reversion is far more flexible, I have very little objection to it, especially if it is easy to review, and it is certainly easy to undo. I'd say that when a bot reverts an IP editor, a notice should be dropped on the Talk page. The notice should explain what to do if the user thinks the link is appropriate, such as suggesting it on the article Talk page. Bots can be far more focused and specific, they can prevent the anonymous or new-editor addition of links to, say, articles, but let them be for talk pages. Or if Talk page links are clearly abused for true spamming (which is by definition unrelated and nearly always useless), then the bot can be expanded in application, but, still responsible editors can add links. And lose their right to edit if they abuse it. It's far more efficient than the blunt instrument of the blacklists, once the proper tools are in place. Thanks. I'm not exercised about what happens to University of Atlanta, but ... we should not punish our readers for the actions of bad apples. If it's notable, it gets an article. It then gets a link to its web site. But it does not get to control its own article; I suggested to Amithani that if there were any problems with the article, that he ask for help on the Talk page. He ignored that. Too bad for him. I have no big investment that depends on his cooperation. --Abd (talk) 21:47, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
File Copyright problem
File Copyright problem

Thank you for uploading File:Triple tracks in CR-39.jpg. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the file. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their license and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thanks again for your cooperation. — neuro(talk)(review) 18:45, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I placed the information in the form provided, but the URL for the source was somehow stripped out. It's in the edit summary. It's an image provided with a press release by the American Chemical Society. The ACS page gives permission information, which stated "No restrictions." None of the templates seem to contemplate a release by an author (photographer) other than the uploader, yet this image was clearly released into the public domain, and it has been widely used in major media yesterday and by many web sites. I'm not sure that I've done it right, the lack of an appropriate permissions template worries me. I put in a template for a general release, with the credited photographer as the one releasing. --Abd (talk) 21:37, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Suspected_User:Fredrick_day_sock

As you participated in checkuser discussions pertaining to the above, your insights may be helpful. Sincerley, --A NobodyMy talk 20:35, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

This was archived at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive524#Suspected_User:Fredrick_day_sock. A whole boatload of socks were found by checkuser. And I hardly had to lift a finger. I don't know if my comment helped, but I did conclude that the suspicion was reasonable.
Okay, I should make something clear, I didn't notice this in the report from the checkuser. Fredrick day uses multiple IP access. He is quite capable of making two accounts seem unrelated; the socks were multiple accounts from the same user as Ntoo2B. The checkuser report considered Ntoo2B to be unrelated to the IP, but the IP to be possibly Fredrick day. Since FD popped in with that IP to claim that Ntoo2B wasn't FD, that was a no-brainer (and we already knew that FD had used that range and, I think, that specific IP. Checkuser concluded that Ntoo2B and the IP were not related, something I questioned; however, FD is perfectly capable of simulating independent access within limits, and I don't know the extent of the CU evidence on which the conclusion of not related was based. I'd consider the matter open, but largely moot. WThe identified "master" is obviously is not the original account, that was simply as far back as checkuser could go, the user wasn't new.
It's an odd coincidence that a big sock drawer is opened because a user suspects that one of them is Fredrick Day based on behavior. Possible. But, more likely, this was just FD displaying his ability to use multiple ISPs, he's bragged about it and demonstrated it before. --Abd (talk) 04:22, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
However, if the checkuser found that the editor was clearly located elsewhere than where FD operates, that would be another matter. There are techniques for appearing that you are coming from somewhere else, and I don't know how sophisticated our system is in detecting all that. --Abd (talk) 04:24, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Naturwissenschaften

See what their editors and description have to say. It is a Life sciences journal. Springer has been publishing this for a long time, they ought to know what it covers.LeadSongDog come howl 15:22, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

There is definitely an oddity there. LSD, did you look at the quote I put up? Yes, I saw what you saw, but the basic page on the publication shows something quite different. You are using searches for "life sci", so you find what you are looking for. Why are you looking for this? I'll speculate, but I won't write it.
Okay, "they ought to know what it covers." From what I wrote at Talk:Cold_fusion#Die_Naturwissenschaften_isn.27t_properly_described_as_a_.22Life_Sciences.22_journal:
[2], I took it out. This has been raised before, the SPAWAR results, published there, were discounted previously based on a claim that they were being published in a journal that wouldn't have adequate resources to review the work. At that time, I pointed out that the journal is a publication of the Max Planck Institut, and that it is, like Nature (journal), a general journal covering the natural sciences. [3]: Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature - is Springer’s flagship multidisciplinary science journal covering all aspect of the natural sciences. The journal is dedicated to the fast publication of high-quality research following rigorous peer-review process and publishes a whole array of work that reflects the contemporary developments across the broad field of the natural sciences. Particularly welcomed are contributions that bridge between traditionally isolated areas and attempt to increase the conceptual understanding of systems and processes that demand an interdisciplinary approach. However, this does not exclude the publication of high-quality topical articles, which will continue to be the core of the journal.
Chemically assisted nuclear reactions (CANR) is a field which crosses the boundary between chemistry and nuclear physics. The journal is actually an ideal place to publish such research. --Abd (talk) 14:20, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Physics is a natural science. Why they have the journal classified under Life Sciences is not clear, but they have no category for "General Natural Science," and I notice that most articles are, indeed, in what could be called Life Sciences, but the claim before was that, because they are a "Life Science" journal, they wouldn't have the review facilities to assess an article in chemistry or physics. That's why I've pointed out that they are published by the Max Planck Institut. You have, perhaps, heard of Herr Planck?

[4] repeats their desire for interdisciplinary papers:
Competition for space in Naturwissenschaften is keen, and the journal receives many more good manuscripts than can be accepted for publication. Current rejection rate reaches about 50% of all submitted work. Preference is thus given to scholarly works that present a compelling case for significant advances in a subject area or are of broader interest because of their interdisciplinary nature. Preliminary reports or work that just confirms previous findings, as well as articles that are likely to interest small specialist group only, will not be considered.
Calling this a "life sciences" journal in the text of the article provides a clear POV slant, attempting to impeach reliable sources has been frequently done with Cold fusion. Don't do it. --Abd (talk) 00:31, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I dunno, I'm neutral on that. On the diff I reverted, I objected more to the rest of changes done in it. --Enric Naval (talk) 03:44, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Enric, reverting changes that you don't object to, when the changes were as small as this, is a tad rude. I.e., take out what you need to take out, but leave what you can. It builds cooperation. --Abd (talk) 04:03, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
(ec)It is a hallmark of every fringe topic that there are unreliable sources advanced as trustworthy. It is accordingly necessary to look carefully at all sources. We should not shrink from doing so. Naturwissenshaften is of course a fine, highly regarded journal, but there are many more clearly multidisciplinary journals. The authors could have approached one with a more direct focus on the relevant topic areas, but they chose this one - so why? Ease of correspondence between Berlin and San Diego? The expectation that its readership (of biologists etc) would be particularly well equipped to provide insightful feedback? It's not a reason that jumps out at you.LeadSongDog come howl 06:09, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks, Abd. I... don't even know what came over me. Such ridiculous BS really isn't like me, so perhaps I just "needed a break". Anyway, thanks. I appreciate your words of wisdom. --Aepoutre (talk) 21:04, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

No problem. It happens to all of us. I can understand how it looked to you, as if you were being stonewalled. What speaks very well in your favor is that you looked again. Too many editors, once they have stuck their foot in their mouth, then argue tenaciously that it's bloomin' obvious it belongs there, how dare you demand that they remove it? So it's quite refreshing to see and editor say, "Oops! My bad!" and move on. These are the best editors. There are no editors who don't make mistakes, unless they don't make many edits. --Abd (talk) 23:09, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Question concerning an article

On Sustainability article there is a team that has been editing the article for months. Most every problem is met by them getting tighter control on the article, and then complaining that bringing certain things to attention, is stopping them from editing... which I do not believe to be true. Mostly it is two people that edit in tandem, Sunray being the ostensible leader. I have edited the article also as you know... but the team is not only not friendly toward me... they are hostile. Recently I pointed out that a team member there Granitethighs who authored a book that he reffed/linked in the article to cite an entire section, may have a conflict of interest, or may be spamming his book. I think he is. Apparently other team members were aware of his book without revealing that information. He became a wiki editor about the time his book was published and started an entire article also from scratch using his book as the back bone sourcing of the article Sustainable gardens, landscapes and sites http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sustainable_gardens,_landscapes_and_sites&diff=prev&oldid=277643838

He reffed his book this many times below in the article he created. The book is done under the auspices also of where he is affiliated.

^ a b c d e f Cross, R. & Spencer, R. (2009). Sustainable Gardens. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood. ISBN 978-0-643-09422-2.

More recently three editors in the team have said that I am editing tendentiously because I have brought up two things consistently recently... one being Granitethighs book, which I believe is non notable... and over reffing the U.N. in the article. This persons book... also uses the U.N. as a jumping off point, and one user on the article has said previously that he is involved in the U.N. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Nick_carson&diff=prev&oldid=275742185 - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sustainability&diff=277864633&oldid=277817578 it seems to me that a good B article is being used to showcase the U.N. it is not Sustainability and the U.N. it is just Sustainability. I have added lots of reff's and sources mostly to scientific things. I wrote the history section largely, and other information pieces here and there in the article. I have found editor Sunray to use any method of slanting things to be in a bad light toward myself. I might just ignore the article for a while and leave it at that... but it bothers me that it is over controlled... and a person is putting their book on it... without that being discussed or revealed... until it was brought up, seems way over the top as to neutral editing and seems very much crossing a line. Also that they are wildly attacking me (my opinion) for bringing up that issue. skip sievert (talk) 05:12, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

using "cold fusion" in the cold fusion article

What does this edit summary mean? (...) Been saying for some time, the field is LENR, not "cold fusion." (...). I already know that they changed the name to avoid the negative connotations, but we use "cold fusion" which is still the most common name in english, and is also the title of the article, and is also how it's called in the source, ffs. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

"Cold fusion" is a popular term. The press release was aimed at media, so that term was used in the headline. However, what did the DOE call the topic in 1989 and 2004? And if it isn't fusion, perhaps, this nuclear effect being seen, why is it in the "cold fusion" article? I can answer that question, but my emerging opinion is that we should have this kind of structure:
Condensed matter nuclear science, an article on chemically-assisted nuclear reactions or other nuclear behavior that is particular to condensed matter. Refers to other related articles, including muon-catalyzed fusion. Covers notable conferences on the topic, publication in the field, and the known science. This article would cover current scientific knowledge and experimental reports relating to the topic. It would include what is called "cold fusion," though that might be a separate article, Fusion in metal deuterides.
Fleischmann-Pons effect which describes the specific phenomenon of excess heat found in palladium loaded to a high ration with deuterium, and the specific scientific history of rejection and confirmation of that effect. This article may include a detailed discussion of calorimetry, or may, again, summarize a specific article:
Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments.
Coverage of evidence of nuclear transmutations would be in, big surprise, nuclear transmutation.
Cold fusion would not itself be a science article, but would cover the history and response of the media and scientific community to the 1989 affair and as it has been ongoing. It would, of course, refer to the other articles for the science.
All of the articles, like all articles on Wikipedia, would be required to be NPOV and verifiable. Subarticles would be created when coverage of a subtopic, as found in reliable source, begins to unbalance or overfill an existing article.
Enric, look at the diff you pointed out. Krivit wrote that it might not be fusion, but some other nuclear reaction. He's correct. Why why should we call it "cold fusion"?
There is a possibility, for example, that the neutrons are coming from hot fusion in the lattice. There is some evidence for localized hot spots. What if these become very hot on occasion, but on a very small scale. The neutrons might be hot fusion of tritium/deuterium, from the tritium impurities in the heavy water, caused by high energy conditions caused by localized cold fusion. The point I was making is that the field is actually low-energy nuclear reactions, that's what the DOE called it in 2004. Why are we insisting on a name which, though certainly common, implies conclusions? --Abd (talk) 18:47, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Because it's the most common name, by far. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:07, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
And that is exactly why it is the proper name for the popular, media, and general scientific community (as distinct from those involved in researching or reviewing it) topic. That does not make it the proper name for the science as reflected in peer-reviewed journals, where other names are used. Did the DOE in 2004 review "cold fusion" or did it review "low energy nuclear reactions"?
Certainly there is an interplay between the names. The ICCF was renamed CMNS, but they keep the cold fusion name to show the continuity with prior conferences. See Welcome to the 14th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science, which is also known as the 14th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF-14)[5]. See also [6], with a list of the conferences. In addition to the ICCFs, there are been many other conferences on the Fleischmann-Pons Effect, including 12 in Russia, six in Japan, six in Italy, besides many sessions at various intellectual society conferences, such as the American Physical, Chemical and Nuclear Societies.
The Fleischmann-Pons effect is actually quite well-established, serious opposition to it died out long ago, with the objections to the prior failures to confirm never being cogently answered in peer-reviewed journals, to my knowledge. The origin of the effect remains quite controversial, and this is why dumping it all into one article that presumes a cause, a cause still widely rejected, as if the effect itself were rejected by scientific consensus. Some of the media reports this week have essentially claimed that ("nobody could confirm it."). In 2004, the DOE report was evenly divided on whether or not the effect was real; roughly one-third of the reviewers thought that there was a nuclear explanation. Obviously, if you don't think it happens, you don't accept a nuclear -- or any -- explanation other than possibly experimenter bias or wishful thinking or other error.
The current matter with the Mosier-Boss paper is fascinating. It really is no big surprise at all to those in the field, and that it made such a big splash is due to the background of automatic rejection of the topic by both the media and some segements in the scientific community. It doesn't confirm the Fleischman-Pons effect, the level of neutrons detected would probably not result in any measurable excess heat. But what isn't being said is the background: the neutron radiation is found, at very low levels (but well above background, and correlated with the cathode, and not found with controls), on the back side of the detectors, where the primary radiation product, ionizing radiation (probably alpha, i.e., energetic helium nuclei), can't reach, it's non-penetrating. But it causes massive pitting on the side next to the cathode, if the experiment is run as long as the ones in which the neutrons were found. And that effect is directly correlated with the production of excess heat: you don't get the heat, you don't get that level of radiation. Plus if you get the heat, you get helium, at levels correlated, in quite a number of reports, with the amount of heat generated. By the way, if they place the detectors outside the cell, against a thin mylar window, they get the apparent alpha radiation at reduced levels, as would be expected from the loss in the mylar, which just wreaks havoc on the alternate explanations advanced of dendritic damage or chemical damage or damage from corona discharge. No way, however, that the triple tracks are caused by anything other than proton recoil from high energy neutrons. By the way, see CR-39 for some images showing the triple-track effect. Some of the media reported that they found "three tracks," as if this were a report based on three isolated tracks, or even one set of three. I predicted that there would be blog response ridiculing the report based on this, and then I saw it.
Enric, there is a huge bias out there against cold fusion. The skepticism is quite warranted, but the automatic assumption that dedicated and professional researchers who've been working in the field for twenty years are bumbling idiots enthusiastically reporting something of no significance, is, shall we say, not warranted. --Abd (talk) 20:06, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Doh, if this about the "very significant" bit in the article, it's the researchers themselves who are saying it. I suppose that they must believe that it's really significant, and that it's necessary to say so? Anyways, the article needs to point out that the CR-39 is considered significant by proponents. (I mean, dude, I'm tired of people on the talk page bring up so many times how the CR-39 thing finally provides evidence of cold fusion, as if it was the Holy Grial of CF or something).
To sum it up, you talk as if adding that bit was an insult towards the researchers, but, man, they themselves felt the need to say it! --Enric Naval (talk) 23:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Krivit is being politically cagey, he is (correctly) pointing out that the neutrons might be coming from some process other than fusion. Lots of weird stuff, apparently, happens in the lattice. There is another paper, I think I called attention to it on Monday, that provides a theoretical basis for deuterium fusion in the palladium lattice, and that allegedly predicts the reaction levels found, plus his radiation measurements and reports. None of this mentions "cold fusion." Fleischmann's discovery of excess heat was rejected on the basis of theory regarding fusion. What if he had, instead, published a quiet little paper on anomalous excess heat, with no explanation other than, perhaps, an obvious speculation and a suggestion for further research? What if that original publication had emphasized how difficult it was to obtain the phenomenon? It's now well-known in the field how to get it with reasonable reliability, but it's still difficult. The difficulty may result in the process being unusable commercially, as one possible consequence. CMNS is not about "free energy." But we don't know what's possible. Maybe cheap, clean, renewable energy. Or not. To find out will take a lot of money, unless some garage experimenter happens upon something that is easily reproducible and robust enough to use in a commercial product. --Abd (talk) 20:06, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Really, I'm not going to argue on what would if have happened if things had been done differently. F and P made it that way, and the "cold fusion" name stuck. (btw, DOE 1989 uses "cold fusion" all over the place", and the DOE 2004 report uses "cold fusion" four times and "low energy nuclear reactions" nine, including the title. Not bad for a field that is supossedly not called that way at all. Mind you, that would establish the usage in government reports, it would still leave the common usage in mainstream, general public, scientists in general, journals, etc) --Enric Naval (talk) 23:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Enric, I have not said that the field isn't called "cold fusion." I also call it that, frequently. But it is not precise, and incorporates assumptions. You've called the palladium/deuterium co-deposition cells (that's what Mosier-Boss calls them and that is precisely what they are) "cold fusion cells." Does that mean that fusion at low temperatures is taking place in them? By the general usages, the Arata work with palladium black or other finely powdered palladium alloy, pressurized with deuterium, no electrolyis or energy input other than the transient chemical energy released when palladium absorbs deuterium, is a "cold fusion cell." Radically different in structure and operation (in Arata's recent work, the thing just sits there emitting heat steadily for a very long time, I don't see any limit in the reports, but they stop the experiment and open them up after some time to look for helium), but the common factor is that palladium is loaded to 1:1 with deuterium. Other metals are used besides palladium, some of them apparently show the effects. "Cold fusion cell," then, is a huge blanket category, encompassing many types of experiments.

In the subject text, I replaced "cold fusion cell," which really tells us very little about the cell, with "palladium-deuterium co-deposition cell." It is neutral and accurate. What's the problem? As Krivit points out, maybe it isn't fusion. If it isn't fusion but some other kind of nuclear reaction, would it still be appropriate to call it a "cold fusion cell"? --Abd (talk) 04:01, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I replied you at Talk:Cold_fusion#cold_fusion_cell, both sources use "cold fusion" all over the place including the title, and one of them specifically call the cells "cold fusion devices". I think that's pretty clear.... --Enric Naval (talk) 13:05, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Enric, this, once again, raises the issue of what the article Cold fusion is about. Is it a science article or is it a popular phenomenon article? (The history of science is a history of human efforts and opinions.) Absolutely, the cells are cold fusion cells. An grenade is an explosive. If we report an event, we could use general language, such as, the soldier died because of an explosion in his foxhole. Or we could be a little more specific, an explosive device was tossed in his foxhole, or we could say that it was a grenade. If our sources show that it was a grenade, should we use the more general term? "Cold fusion cell" is actually quite general, it covers many different kinds of experiments that are designed to show the effects of low-energy nuclear reactions. "Palladium-deuterium co-deposition" is a specific technique, quite notable and probably deserving of its own article; it has unique characteristics. You will not find "cold fusion cell" used in the research papers, beyond reference to the popular concepts. The papers are about the Pd-D system or Ni-D, etc. --Abd (talk) 13:42, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Scientific papers use specialized tech-speak that would only confuse the readers if we used it. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:09, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
So we should use confusing pop-speak that carries a POV? Enric, this is an encyclopedia. We define terms if they aren't obvious. Co-deposition should be defined in the article or in its own article, and if they are reading the Cold fusion article this far, we can assume that they know what palladium is and what deuterium is. The argument you are giving is a classic argument made by POV editors who want to predigest subjects for the readership, not trusting that they will be able to understand the issues and make their own choices. I just got the first of the pile of books I ordered on this subject, and it is utterly fascinating, A dialogue on Chemically Induced Nuclear Effects, by Nate Hoffman. It says, back in 1995, just about exactly what I've been saying over the last two months on Talk:Cold fusion. Now there is reliable source for it. Watch. Have you read the book, Enric? --Abd (talk) 23:50, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
In Talk:Cold_fusion#cold_fusion_cell I have listed a good amount of sources using "cold fusion cell", including several papers hosted at lenr-car.org and several cold fusion conferences.
Anyways, you might well be right in that someone that has read so far can realize that it's a cold fusion cell even if we don't call it that way (and it probably be guessed by context anyways). My head hurts and I'm quite involved with this, so I could just be too stubborn in the matter. I'm leaving it for other editors to determine if it's confusing to call it a "palladium-deuterium co-deposition cell" and rewrite for clarity if it's necessary. I'd rather argue over more important things, like the sentences following that sentence, you know, the ones that we were arguing to mention Padley and Krivit or not. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:09, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

30 days for rfc have passed

It's been already 30 days since the MfD for User:Abd/JzG. I'll wait a few more days, in case you forgot about it, and then I'll ask that it gets deleted. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:42, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I knew it was getting close. It's not crucial, though it will probably be a little simpler if the page remains instead of the evidence being replaced when needed from my off-line copy (or through undeletion). There will be a question of where it lives. The problem with the deletion is that the page was cited in an ArbComm request and there were relevant comments made that were clearly based on it, but that's ArbComm's problem. --Abd (talk) 23:14, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
The draft is up, still a few things to add. I expect it will be moved to RfC space this week. --Abd (talk) 06:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Hot Stain Comment

I have left a comment for you on Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Hot_stain. Gigs (talk) 20:54, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Abd/JzG

Are you going to file an RfAr using the material? Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 14:37, 29 March 2009 (UTC)cl

I certainly hope not. As you might recall, the page was already used as evidence before an RfAR/Clarification; however, that RfAR, filed by JzG, was rejected as premature. At the time the evidence page was compiled, there were a few arbitrators tending toward confirmation of the request. After the evidence was put up, the tide turned toward what was clearly much more appropriate: rejection based on lack of proper prior process, and there was reference, direct and indirect, to my comment, which was founded on the evidence page. (JzG had unexpectedly bypassed almost the entire dispute resolution process, jumping to RfAr.)
It remains possible that JzG will come to his senses. However, his tendentious involvement with Cold fusion has continued, with edit warring at Martin Fleischmann without regard to consensus process and simply repeating arguments after there has been careful examination and rejection of them. This is background here and is only intended to explain my own actions.
The RfC never was an "attack page" or "laundry list of grievances," if you look at it. With the exception of "conclusions," It was an attempt at a neutral examination of JzG's involvement with Cold fusion and related articles, necessary to understand his administrative actions with respect to related articles and involved editors. If a list of diffs or logs from an editor, particularly when compiled completely as to relevant pages, with very little comment, is an "attack," the editor has a problem.
What I have done, now, is to create a draft RfC, referring to the evidence page, which should be ready to move to RfC space today or certainly within the next few days, it's at User:Abd/JzG/RfC.
Why did I wait so long? It should be realized that I've been loathe to impeach an administrator as long as lesser measures did not suffice. It really is not fun. Administrators are volunteers, do or have done a great deal of work, and probably the bulk of it is useful. In spite of my conclusion that JzG's actions have deeply damaged Wikipedia in certain areas, I'd have preferred for the community at large, and especially those administrators who share his POV on fringe issues, to restrain their friend, to allow him to continue his useful work with the tools. They have not. The MfD essentially forced this, but the extended time allowed me to, for a time, put it at the bottom of my to-do list. Thanks. --Abd (talk) 15:20, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
I was somewhat surprised (but not completely so) by the result of the MfD for this page. After all, there was ample precedent that such pages are allowed to be kept publicly viewable for completely indefinite periods of time, and even when they contain commentary that goes well beyond the mere collection of diff's. I guess it pays to be an administrator so that you can just do whatever you want. For my part, I have not actually asked to have Raul's page deleted because it actually works in my favor in that it clearly demonstrates the blind bias on Raul's part. I couldn't prepare a better set of diffs and associated commentary to illustrate Raul's bias even if I wanted to. --GoRight (talk) 20:16, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia process will never be understood without having some understanding of the involved politics. The MfD for this page was very strange, because by filing it, JzG essentially forced me to file the RfC. I have difficulty imagining what he was thinking, if he was thinking and not just reacting. He may have been counting on my inertia, he may believe his own rhetoric, he may be counting on his many friends to support him, and he's won many battles before, but generally only where participation bias works in his favor. It is not true that if you are an administrator, you can "do whatever you want" without consequence. However, "consequence" may require that more than one editor seriously confront the issues, it is a huge hassle, and there are usually ways to finesse the problem with respect to any given particular situation, so many conclude it's not worth it. However, at some point, if a problem isn't transient, someone realizes that there is an ongoing problem, that it is causing continued damage, that this damage is serious, and thus it must be addressed. If this user rushes in, and is not already highly placed politically, forget it, the user is dead meat, because of the instinctive support. Sooner or later, though, someone with the understanding and means to address the problem will come into contact with it. Everything is recorded; however, there is currently a discussion on the speedy deletion guideline talk page about the deletion of indef blocked user pages. Some see no problem with that, but others -- rightly, in my view -- point out that this conceals editor history from all but admins, narrowly constricting the field of editors with the capacity to review prior actions to those who are also admins and who generally don't have the time to do what it takes to deal with a long-term issue like this, besides the problem of entrusting police review to the police. We could set up process for wider review of deletions that would be more or less like PROD, with some better-designed criteria to allow deletion of truly useless stuff in user space, but if any substantial segment of the editor community want to keep this stuff, it should be kept; preserving history preserves the rights of present minorities to eventually make their case to the community, and it actually takes less effort than deleting it. There is no storage cost issue. --Abd (talk) 20:42, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Emailed to you. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 18:59, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. --Abd (talk) 19:48, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Abd/Cold fusion controversy

Per your request to my talkpage, I have userfied the page and its history to the above location. Do not distribute copies of this page's contents except in compliance with the GFDL, and if you wouldn't mind, can you just ping me when you want it moved back, or if you can't bring the page up to standard so that I can return the history to the right location. Give me a nudge if you need any other help. Fritzpoll (talk) 15:40, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll ask on your page about whether or not there was an attached Talk page with anything possibly of note. One reason I wanted to have this userfied was so that history would be attached, this is better than pulling the text off of the off-wiki location. I wanted the page basically for research, the material, in pieces, might be incorporated in a different article, probably with rewrite. But it is conceivable that it would go back into mainspace under some conditions. --Abd (talk) 15:46, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
wow, nice article, a bit POVish though :P Anyways, I have to thank you for the iniative since I found there a very interesting letter exchange with two editors-in-chief of Scientific American http://lenr-canr.org/AppealandSciAm.pdf.
One thing, you should clean up all those "ibid" from the text. They all just get mixed up when people starts shuffling text around and neglects to update them, and then someone has go look at the history edit by edit to untangle the mess and find when was that "ibid" initally introduced to see what it was making reference to, or look at all the sources to find the one that was being used (assuming that it wasn't deleted from the article at some point, which takes you back to combing through the article history). Seriously, the "ibid" were intended for static text in printed media, and not for wikis that anyone can edit. You get a fair percentage of people who don't know what "ibid" means, or that don't care about it. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Of course. But, hey, I just found out about this old article today. Much of it was written by Jed Rothwell, who is an expert on the topic, besides being cantankerous; he's used to editing technical papers (he does a lot of that in the field), but he wasn't a skilled wiki editor. (My opinion is that we should take special care with experts like him, they can be touchy; handling Rothwell as he was handled by some of us was pure poison in terms of taking advantage of his comprehensive knowledge of the field. "Fringe" is very much off the mark, even if the field is fringe. That is, he's COI and that's enough. COI editors are expected to have a POV, so getting upset because an editor who only edits Talk has a POV is really .... very much against how Wikipedia needs to treat experts in general. As to the article, I don't know if we should clean it up and get it back in mainspace (and face a likely AfD as a "POV fork," no matter how careful we are about neutrality, or even speedy deletion based on the old AfD) or start moving the details about the controversy into Cold fusion. As you know, I think that article can't bear what is available in reliable source. --Abd (talk) 02:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

looooooong comments at Talk:Cold fusion

[Enric Naval:] I have collapsed three of your comments, two for readability and the third one for readability and OR(*). People who want to read them can uncollapse the boxs.

  • I'm going to intersperse, the bulleted, italic comments are mine, and I'll sign each paragraph. You are entitled to your opinion, Enric. I don't edit war over collapse boxes. I let others judge if my comments are worth reading or not. --Abd (talk)
  • You say that you won't edit war and that you will let others editors judge on your comments, but you reverted two of my three collapsings.... [7][8] Apparently you will only accept "'friendly' and selective collapse"[9].... You also say "(...)Don't try to stop others from reading it, but efforts to organize what I've written into what should be on top level and what should be collapsed are just fine(...)"[10] Putting all together actions and words, it looks like you are decided to have the last word on what gets collapsed in your comments and why, never mind what you state about letting other people decide.
  • Also, I don't agree that my hatnote wasn't neutral[11]. If you don't like to be told that your comments are OR, then you should stop writing OR, specially after several editors have asked you to stop the OR (myself, Phil153, maybe Noren, and others, I would have to look it up) Yeah, I know, you think that your level of OR is acceptable, but, when you have several people telling you that you are wrong on something, then it's time to realize that maybe you are wrong after all. (I bet that jed, and maybe Pcarbonn and other cold fusion proponents, are telling you off-wiki that your comments are very appropiate and that you keep going, but you should be taking their input with a sack of salt, after all the talk page comments of Jed and Pcarbonn paid an important role in getting them banned so they haven't exactly shown that they know what you can put on a wikipedia talk page and what you can't! I am not a wiki guru, but at least I manage to not get myself banned) --Enric Naval (talk) 21:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

(*) not just OR but also endless repetition of the same analysis of the DOE review ("one-third of the panel thought that" etc.), which was already beaten to death by Pcarbonn and Jed. Use some secondary source that analyzes the results, like the Scientific American [13], which ends with a quote from the principal deputy director of science of the DOE:

"When asked if this meant that nothing had changed since the last DOE review, Decker replies, 'I think that may be a fair comment'."
  • Eh? That's fair? The report itself says that little had changed. However, changed about what? You've got to understand what the charge was, the task; ultimately it was to recommend or not recommend a special federal program funding LENR research. What they concluded in 1989 and what they concluded in 2004 seem about the same to me. However, the overall attitude shifted. Now, I haven't read the individual reviews from the 1989 report. Here is what the article from the Sci Am article you cited says that indicates the kind of consensus present:
Eighteen nuclear physicists, electrochemists and materials scientists reviewed research submitted by Hagelstein and his colleagues. In its December 2004 report, the DOE stated that when it came to whether the evidence for excess power was compelling or not, the panel split about evenly. When it came to whether nuclear reactions took place in the experiments, the report noted that two thirds of reviewers found the evidence unconvincing, one person found it compelling, and the remainder were somewhat convinced.
  • That is pretty much the same as what the DOE report says, itself. This is the kind of information that was removed from the article. What was it like in 1989?
  • I haven't seen a "vote" breakdown from 1989. However, one thing is clear to me: the 1989 report was far more supportive of "cold fusion" than it has been made out to be. If something in 1989 "killed" cold fusion, that report was not it. It recommended further research. The DOE does not recommend further research on N-rays or polywater. And as to 2004, a panel of the DOE would not be evenly split on the question of excess heat if cold fusion was "junk science."
  • The 1989 report makes it to be a major objection that helium had not been shown. Since then, helium has been reported at levels consistent with the excess heat, in controlled experiments; and note that good measurement of helium turns negative heat results into confirmations of cold fusion, if no heat is correlated with no helium, which has been reported; this dismantles one of the major arguments against cold fusion on which the 1989 report depended.
  • From the 2004 report, what the CF researchers were asserting:
1. “The existence of a physical effect that produces heat in metal deuterides. The heat is measured in quantities greatly exceeding all known chemical processes and the results are many times in excess of determined errors using several kinds of apparatus. In addition, the observations have been reproduced, can be reproduced at will when the proper conditions are reproduced, and show the same patterns of behavior. Further, many of the reasons for failure to reproduce the heat effect have been discovered.”
2. “The production of 4He as an ash associated with this excess heat, in amounts commensurate with a reaction mechanism consistent with D+D 􀃆 4He + 23.8 MeV (heat)”. :::3. “A physical effect that results in the emission of: (a) energetic particles consistent with d(d,n)3He and d(d,p)t fusions reactions, and (b) energetic alphas and protons with energies in excess of 10 MeV, and other emissions not consistent with deuteron-deuteron reactions.”
  • In 1989, there was no claim of helium finding. In 2004, the claim is discussed:
The hypothesis that excess energy production in electrolytic cells is due to low energy nuclear reactions was tested in some experiments by looking for D + D fusion reaction products, in particular 4He, normally produced in about 1 in 107 in hot D + D fusion reactions. Results reported in the review document purported to show that 4He was detected in five out of sixteen cases where electrolytic cells were reported to be producing excess heat. The detected 4He was typically very close to, but reportedly above background levels. This evidence was taken as convincing or somewhat convincing by some reviewers; for others the lack of consistency was an indication that the overall hypothesis was not justified. Contamination of apparatus or samples by air containing 4He was cited as one possible cause for false positive results in some measurements.
  • Completely missing from this is the details on control. How much helium would be expected from the excess heat reported? What was found, and I believe reported to the panel, was that the levels of helium reported were commensurate with the level of excess heat reported. No excess heat, no helium above background. Excess heat, elevated helium. Even if the elevations are not far above background, this is where statistical analysis can show clear correlation and thus causal association as a reasonable presumption. I've seen data which is far more clear than the summary given above, I should look at what they were looking at. I should also check on the helium reports from the SPAWAR group, because the technique they use is very reliable for producing excess heat; much of the earlier work was plagued with difficulty at getting any result at all. But, suppose that you run 160 cells. Only 16 of them produce excess heat. Looks lousy, right? Maybe it's just bad calorimetry in those cases. (But that is actually very unlikely with some of the research groups). Okay, then in five of the sixteen you find helium. No helium in any of the cells with no heat. Is this a significant finding? Damn straight it would be! That would be a proof beyond reasonable doubt that the excess heat is a precondition for the helium finding. Further, suppose that we look at the 11 cells where no helium was found after they had excess heat, and we see that the excess heat from those cells was lower than from the ones where helium was found. This would be proof on top of proof, that the excess heat and produced helium are effectively measuring the same process or cause. (I just made up the number 160, to show that the total number of negative experiments was crucial in understanding the reported results.)
  • The reported conclusion is quite unsatisfactory; it will be necessary to look at the individual reports and compare them to the raw data.
  • So why did the 2004 DOE report say that it was basically the same conclusion as in 1989. Because it was! What was the conclusion? What was seriously wrong with the article for a time was that the conclusion was read and interpreted as a dismissal of cold fusion as being junk science. That wasn't true in 1989 and it wasn't true in 2004. The conclusion wasn't that cold fusion was happening or not happening, it was a conclusion that the evidence was not yet conclusive and that further research should continue, but not a major federal program. Which, by the way, is still quite a reasonable conclusion (though it might not be the best conclusion). Why? Because the goal of the DOE report was to determine this question of "major federal funding," not whether or not cold fusion was junk science. It is crystal clear that this wasn't their opinion as a panel, and the level of confidence that cold fusion was "possible" wasn't what their overall conclusion was based on. And, in fact, there is something we don't know. Who wrote this the following overall conclusion?
While significant progress has been made in the sophistication of calorimeters since the review of this subject in 1989, the conclusions reached by the reviewers today are similar to those found in the 1989 review.
  • It's anonymous, apparently. What was similar, though? Both reports recommended further research. Both reports did not recommend a federal program, beyond normal research funding process. The 2004 report was pretty specific about what research was recommended. This was charge 3:
Charge Element 3: Determine whether there is a scientific case for continued efforts in these studies and, if so, to identify the most promising areas to be pursued.
  • Please notice the summary response:
The nearly unanimous opinion of the reviewers was that funding agencies should entertain individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues relevant to the question of whether or not there is anomalous energy production in Pd/D systems, or whether or not D-D fusion reactions occur at energies on the order of a few eV. These proposals should meet accepted scientific standards, and undergo the rigors of peer review. No reviewer recommended a focused federally funded program for low energy nuclear reactions.
  • They were not asked if one should be recommended, so that's a comment representing the goals of the author of the overall review. I can say that I probably know more about the cold fusion research, at this point, than the author of the overall review, whoever it was, and I'm not at all sure I'd recommend a "focused federally funded program" at this point, but I'd definitely recommend certain targeted points of research. Enric, the panel was unanimous on that!
  • Enric, is this even remotely consistent with claims that cold fusion is "pseudoscience" or "junk science" or even "fringe science." It's "fringe" because of the opinions of large number of scientists that it's fringe, but that phenomenon doesn't reproduce itself in a neutral panel. Is there some membership card that says "Scientist," and those with the card can vote on a topic, and the topic is "science" if, what, how many, vote that it is? Or it's "fringe" if more than what percentage vote for it to be such? No, we consider the opinions of experts, those with knowledge in the specific field, issued after consideration of the evidence. And this returns me to the question here, what is the relevant field? The panel consisted of experts in nuclear physics, electrochemistry (even though some CF research doesn't involve electrochemistry any more), and materials science. That's actually a pretty decent mix. I wonder if the one-third that considered the evidence for fusion strong were the electrochemists! Back to Enric. --Abd (talk)

See also Biberian 2007, which was an update on the state of the field:

"Seventeen years after the announcement by Professors Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the discovery of cold fusion in March 1989, the scientific community does not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme." (that's in 2007, so 3 years after DOE 2004
  • Preaching to the choir, Enric. Note what this implies: that the "scientific community" rejects the conclusions of the 2004 DOE report. The "scientific community" rejects the peer-reviewed research, and, largely, denies that it even exists. ("Nobody was able to confirm Fleischmann's results") Are you aware of the implications of this?
  • Sure, we should report this, but not as "science," but rather as "about scientists and the scientific community," and, in fact, we have plenty of reliable source analyzing the dysfunctional response to the CF announcement and what followed. (And the dysfunction has been on both sides of this debate, I'm dealing with it a bit from the other side. As an example, Hoffman's book on LENR is excellent, but some pro-CF activists have condemned him, for reasons that somewhat escape me. He is a true skeptic, one who is just as skeptical of premature rejection as he is of premature claims of proof. And he is very aware, and very clear, about the hazards on both sides.

And "Driving forces in physical, biological and socio-economic phenomena" from "cambridge University Press [14]

"On December 2, 2004 the US Department of Energy published a report which says that evidence on cold fusion remains inconclusive."

"Responsible Conduct of Research" from Oxford UP, one of the authors being Shamoo (the guy from Undead Science), is from 2009 and [15], it doesn't even mention the DOE 2004 review, it just states that it's still in the same situation as in 1989.

  • Largely, yes. Enric, you are beating a dead horse. The 2004 DOE report says that "evidence remains inconclusive." It also says that its conclusions were similar to 1989. Sure. What does "inconclusive" mean? It means that reasonable doubt remains for the majority of reviewers; one-third of them said that they were "somewhat convinced," with one of those simply being "convinced." Enric, most of what you are saying is obvious, yet you are presenting it as if it were somehow escaping me. What I conclude is that you don't have the foggiest notion what I'm saying. --Abd (talk)

And OMCV also told you his first-hand experience with cold fusion being fringe.

  • Sure. But what is "fringe" and how does it affect Wikipedia coverage of a topic? See WP:FRINGE. It's actually not well-defined. But I know of no other claimed "fringe science" with as much evidence for acceptance as LENR research. Are you aware of any fringe science where a governmental panel of experts unanimously recommends further research? OMCV claims that he'd ruin his career if it were known that he is even talking about cold fusion, even though he's a skeptic. Enric, this tells us practically nothing about the science, but a great deal about society. (end of interspersed comment, back to Enric for the last paragraph)

Given all this (and I'm sure that a few more RS can be produced), and given that you all your analysis relies on your reading of the reviews, I think it's clear that you simply engaged in OR in that third comment that I collapsed. Please don't uncollapse it and start paying more attention to what the sources say. This is getting tiring. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:54, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe I'll reverse my policy, Enric. OR is permitted on Talk pages if relevant to the process of working on the article. OR can suggest searches for RS covering the topic. I'd say this: start paying attention to what I'm saying, or don't read it. Don't try to stop others from reading it, but efforts to organize what I've written into what should be on top level and what should be collapsed are just fine. If the goal is comprehension for the reader and not suppression of discussion.
As to Pcarbonn and Jed, well, Pcarbonn was a good editor. I've read the ArbComm decision, he got a very raw deal, and eventually I'll do something about it, but it will depend mostly on Pcarbonn. If he wanted to come back, I'd assist, but my conclusion was that it didn't matter that much. That he was banned is our loss, and I don't know that it would be the best use of his time or mine or all the other editors who would get involved on both sides to try to reverse the ArbComm decision. And, Enric, please understand that I expect that if I took that task on, I'd succeed. Rothwell is an expert on the topic who tends to think that people who don't understand him (or who don't meet his expectations) are idiots. That's an occupational hazard for some experts. The points he has been making about cold fusion are generally right on, based on what I've found reviewing the literature, his points about Wikpedia and Wikipedia editors are somewhere between impolitic and ignorant. He knows the literature intimately; he actually edited a good deal of it! Dismissing someone because the person is a writer is ... stupid. And double dismissing him because his degree is in Japanese is, again, nearsighted, given that some of the most intense research published in peer-reviewed journals has been published in Japanese. Writers often become experts on the topic they cover; have you noticed that Krivit, that "fringe POV-pusher," as some have tried to have it, was invited to be on the panel at the ACS press conference? Why would these people pick some nutty loony-tune? Actually, I've talked to him and have looked over a fair amount of his work. He's a reporter, a serious one, a professional. But you know about the media, how biased they are. (Where someone is a true reporter, not just a hack collator of press releases and free information or shallow interviews, they often develop personal opinions about the topics they cover, becoming informed has a habit of doing that to us.) --Abd (talk) 03:46, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, let's see. Here I have two evaluations of the effect of the DOE 2004 review. One is your asessment here at wikipedia, and the other is the assesment of the principal deputy director of science of the DOE, as quoted by Scientific American. You will understand that I choose the second assessment as this guy was in a much better position to assess DOE's activities (including the hellium think, and the vote proportions). Also, for the purpose of writing the article, WP:NOR requires me to choose it, as being a published source knowledgeable in the field. Idem for Biberian, Shamoo, etc.
I am obviously not getting the point that you are trying to make. It appears to have something to do with ignoring what RS say in favor of what you think that they should say. From your comments above, you are planning to engage into full-fledged OR "The reported conclusion is quite unsatisfactory; it will be necessary to look at the individual reports and compare them to the raw data" which you will probably go and report in Talk:Cold fusion, WP:TALK be damned, and you make statements like "I can say that I probably know more about the cold fusion research, at this point, than the author of the overall review". That is... well... I think that you are deluding yourself on this matter. I'll just go and keep working in the article, and see if Phil153 makes that RfC he was talking about. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:21, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
It appears to have something to do with ignoring what RS say in favor of what you think that they should say. No. My point. You are not getting it. However, maybe I'm not being clear, but if I try to be more clear, it takes more words unless I spend much more time, and I already spend too much. What I'm saying is that RS is RS, and peer-reviewed is peer-reviewed. Peer-reviewed sources take precedence over ordinary media. This is the problem: we have lots of media sources for CF being pseudoscience, or for "most scientists" considering it such. But we have little peer-reviewed sources that say that CF is pseudoscience. We have a blatant example that it isn't pseudoscience, a reliable source, the DOE review from 2004. We have the ACS scheduling a four day seminar on low energy nuclear reactions this year, with major media notice. I'd say that it is preposterous that they would giver this much attention to pseudoscience, just as it is preposterous to look at the SPAWAR work, with, what, thirty peer-reviewed papers done over the last twenty years, as pseudoscience. But at the same time, we have major media repeating old "facts" about cold fusion that are blatantly contradictory to what is in peer-reviewed journals. What has been happening for a long time is that peer-reviewed RS material has been excluded from the article with the argument that it's fringe, not broadly accepted, and would therefore be undue weight, but we don't actually have reliable source for that claim sufficient to impeach the peer-reviewed material. We also have reliable source for the fact that the field was warped by the events of 1989, by very sloppy work supposedly proving that cold fusion was not real, work that is still supposed to represent the "mainstream," when, in fact, there isn't any supposed mainstream publication taking place (i.e., the supposedly critical mainstream), or very little. What's been quoted as "criticism" has often been quite the opposite, simply misinterpreted by major media or by us. (Krivit wasn't criticizing the SPAWAR findings, Kowalski, while he proposed an alternate explanation than radiation, did not maintain that hypothesis in the face of the SPAWAR response, and seems to have fully accepted that the CR-39 effects are due to radiation.)
As to OR, no, I'm not intending to engage in "full-fledged OR." I'm discussing what I find in the sources, and this includes some level of OR as appropriate for such discussion, but do not mistake "Talk page OR" with what I would put in the article. The kind of OR that I do leads to searches for what may exist in reliable source, and helps organize the information. It's like using blogs. I don't neglect blogs when doing research for an article, even though I may not be able to use them as sources, because they will sometimes point to a source that doesn't show up in searches. Working with an article on a Canadian national socialist, I found references to newspaper articles that weren't googleable because they were behind subscription walls; I was then able to extract enough from those articles through targeted searches to source the article and save it from deletion.
As to my comment about my knowledge, you don't cite the exact place I said this, do you imagine that I remember what I write? Sometimes, yes, but I'm 64 years old, the brain works differently than it did when I was young. I think I knew what I was talking about there, but perhaps I was wrong. Consider the "principal deputy director of science of the DOE," and what he would know about cold fusion. My strong suspicion is that someone in that position would have spent perhaps a tenth of the time or less researching the particular field as I have, even though I've only been working on this for less than three months. (Yes, I knew about CF and did substantial research back in 1989, but, in fact, very little was known then.) If you think that something other than this is likely, you probably have a very naive view of what a bureaucrat like that would know. He may be an excellent scientist in some field, but once you realize that the DOE has long been dead-set against cold fusion, that in spite of the recommendations of the 1989 review, when Storms approached them with research proposals that were exactly what they had asked for, the door was slammed in his face, as it was with all such proposals, I think it isn't difficult to realize that the DOE would not be likely to put a cold fusion specialist into the position you suggest, and that the person there would probably be knowledgeable in other areas, not this one. The DOE spent one day in the actual review, which is really preposterous, given the complexity of the issues. Sure, there was time spent by individual experts preparing for that meeting, but to find consensus in a group like that takes time. They did not try to find consensus, they simply measured agreement on points, very primitive process, and with that, they were very substantially divided. With detailed discussion, they might have found far more agreement. Rejection of cold fusion by scientists takes place when there isn't adequate discussion, based on what I've seen of old reviews. It would be expected with any new field that challenges old paradigms. In short, Enric, I think I probably have a great deal more experience with the real world in these matters than you. Here, we are peers; if my knowledge is greater, it would still give me no right over you, it's still my job to seek consensus with you, but it is also your job to try to understand with something deeper than AGF, with an assumption that maybe I know what I'm talking about. Don't worry. I take responsibility for this, precisely because (I imagine) I'm older.
You have no obligation to read what I write, nobody does, unless I put it into the article. By all means, do what you said you would do. Keep working on the article. But if you want to know where we might head, yes, you can read what I write, it may give you a clue. There is lots of stuff that I know that I can't put in the article because it depends on OR of some kind or another. For example, I can look at lots of primary sources, including conference papers. It means something to me if an effect is confirmed in a conference paper even if it is never published in a peer-reviewed journal, and that will remain true as long as publication in this field remains very difficult. And I'll note that Storms cites lots of conference papers. He is the reviewer, and his publisher, by citing them! --Abd (talk) 02:34, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
(One thing, you talk about showing that it's not "pseudoscience", but what the RS support is "fringe science, disacredited field, and getting compared to pathological science").
I'll just say that WP:RS does not require sources to be peer-reviewed, that many of those sources are primary sources that are given very little importance at reliable secondary sources (or no importance at all, or even listing them into the evidence for pathological science!), that many of those peer-reviewed sources were found in the talk page to be of doubtful quality or to come from low quality journals, and that all of that justifies plentily why they are not in the article.
As an apart, your comments are way too long and fill the page, dwarfing the posts of other editors, forcing other people to wade though them in order to follow the discussions. It's unhelpful, it discourages people from participating, never mind what you say about people having the choice not to read it, and you keep resisting attempts to collapse your comment. (the page is now at 668 KB, I'm tempted to go and count how many KB correspond to your posts) And you indulge into excessive talk page OR. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:32, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
(One thing, you talk about showing that it's not "pseudoscience", but what the RS support is "fringe science, disacredited field, and getting compared to pathological science"). Enric, do you imagine that the first half of your claimed opposition conflicts with the second half? Why? It's not pseudoscience, as can be sufficiently shown to satisfy a Wikipedia consensus, in my opinion. Want to find out? DR is thataway. But DR starts in article talk, then user talk, then there are higher levels, involving more editors. Cold fusion is a discredited field. We have RS for that. Cold fusion has been compared to N rays and polywater. That's undeniably true, even if that isn't in peer-reviewed source beyond maybe an editorial. But we also have from reliable source that Cold fusion isn't pseudoscience. They are both true. I ask you on CF Talk today what your opinion is. Does it make any sense at all, from the 2004 DOE report and the context, including the unanimous and clear recommendation of the reviewers, that Cold fusion is pseudoscience? Read Hoffman's Dialogue. That was a neutral source, widely reported as being critical of cold fusion. I won't repeat what I've been told about Hoffman by at least one prominent CF advocate. Hoffman is very, very clear that this isn't pseudoscience, that there are workers in the field doing serious scientific work in it, and publishing. Just not in Nature!
I'll just say that WP:RS does not require sources to be peer-reviewed,
Once again, you have this habit of presenting the obvious to me as if you think it would surprise me or that it contradicts what I've said. What I've actually said is that we can and should use whatever is in RS, if it satisfies RS, it's notable. I understand that if you've been doing nothing but trying to maintain the article against POV-pushing, this may have escaped you, it often does. It is not our job to resolve conflicts between reliable sources, properly, we leave that up to the reader.
that many of those sources are primary sources that are given very little importance at reliable secondary sources (or no importance at all, or even listing them into the evidence for pathological science!) ... Listed where, Enric? Consider this: Whatever is listed and used in Storms (2007) has become usable primary source made notable by reference in a secondary source, the Storms publication. That is one huge pile of research, much of it accessible on-line. See, scientists writing reviews don't confine themselves to peer-reviewed studies. They can and do reference conference papers, self-published material from scientists or even non-scientists whom they consider notable, and even private communications. They are not Wikipedia, and RS, in general, need not follow our standards in what they write, just as we don't expect newspapers, RS for us, to footnote and cite everything they write in order for us to be able to use it.
However, if something in one reliable source contradicts other reliable source, or has not been confirmed by other reliable source, we attribute it, we don't exclude it based on our own OR and conclusion that one of these sources is defective. Enric, if this goes up to ArbComm, what I've been telling you will be sustained, my opinion. It seems to me that you are mostly rejecting it because you don't understand it, not because you actually disagree.
that many of those peer-reviewed sources were found in the talk page to be of doubtful quality or to come from low quality journals, and that all of that justifies plentily why they are not in the article. Okay, please point me to the RfC concluding that. You have mistaken the status quo, in an environment where true consensus was not pursued, but merely represented which side wore out the other, or managed to get the other banned, for a "conclusion." I don't edit war, Enric, you know and have seen that, and I don't edit war even when I'm certain I'm "right." You saw what happened with the whitelisted source in Martin Fleischmann. I pushed the edge of edit-warring there beyond my own normal limits, because I was so certain what the consensus would be if we went through real consensus process. Well, because of a certain tendentious editor, I needed to go through that process. Note, also, that it only took low-level steps in WP:DR. But it took a lot of discussion. That is frequently what consensus takes. That's why many organizations abandon consensus process in favor of voting. It seems more efficient. That can be short-sighted, but that's another story.
Waste your time counting the KB, Enric, if you want. What is the guideline that you are going to compare it to? Again, it would be a lovely topic for an RfAr. Before that, I imagine an AN report: "Editor writes 50 KB in one day." Of course, that just might get reframed to "Editor works hard to improve project, examines article issues in detail."
Collapse boxes are appropriate, sometimes, and I've not only consented to the collapse of some of my discussion, I've collapsed some of it myself. Other times it was not appropriate. Enric, don't take one side of a discussion and collapse all of it, except maybe to propose the collapse, it's an efficient way to make the proposal. If I don't accept the collapse, or, better, refactor my comment, collapsing part, let it go. You are totally free to collapse anything I write, but if you do it in a way that distorts what I've been saying -- and you did --, don't be surprised if I undo it. --Abd (talk) 14:39, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Jost one note: there is already consensus for not putting the "pseudoscience" category in the article, it was decided to put it in the "fringe science" category instead, see the RfC from July 2008 Talk:Cold_fusion/Archive_17#Should the article be placed in the category of "pseudoscience" --Enric Naval (talk) 16:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I knew about the conclusion, but thanks for the link. As you may know, I only started following the article in January, as a result of discovering the blacklisting (which, by the way, opened up a huge can of worms. It turns out that, contrary to blacklisting guidelines, the blacklist is frequently being use to control content even when there is no linkspamming, and I discovered one major web site that is blacklisted because an editor started adding perhaps a dozenappropriate links. The antispam volunteers consider any addition of multiple links to a web site (exact level undefined) to be linkspam, shoot first and ask questions later, and if you ask questions, the strong presumption is against delisting, and, as you have seen, you have to stand on your head to get a whitelisting. But the second will be easier, and get a few, there is then some argument for delisting the whole site, or, in the case of lenr-canr.org, whitelisting the whole site (because the current blacklisting is at meta, not here); and when the whole site is whitelisted, it becomes more politically practical to request delisting at meta. We'll get there.
Now, if Cold fusion is pseudoscience, and you just came up with a pile of sources to show that, why not include it in the category? Don't worry, I'll answer! Because those are opinions, not the product of peer-reviewed and neutral research. What I've pointed to is (1) the DOE review in 2004, which is utterly inconsistent with the pseudoscience conclusion, even though it doesn't say, for sure, "the study of low-energy nuclear reactions is pseudoscience," (2) reliable source that neutrally examines how the "pseudoscience" judgment came to become common, and (3) reliable source that clearly rejects the label. So the category is controversial, the application of the label is POV, and categories should not be used to assert some POV. Now a category of "Research field alleged to be pseudoscience," that would be appropriate. It's verifiable.
But what about the "fringe science category." It's easy to understand a prior consensus on that, but, to me, the question is open. There is no crisp definition. However, see Wikipedia:FRINGE#Notability_versus_acceptance. Most of the discussion in WP:FRINGE assumes that it is difficult to find reliable source for the topic. There is then, beyond that, concern about WP:UNDUE. The issue I've been raising is how we determine due weight when the weight of publication in reliable source is toward theories that are considered fringe by many. It is essential that we approach this neutrally. From the guideline (emphasis added):
Ideas that are of borderline or minimal notability may be mentioned in Wikipedia, but should not be given undue weight. Wikipedia is not a forum for presenting new ideas, for countering any systemic bias in institutions such as academia, or for otherwise promoting ideas which have failed to merit attention elsewhere. Wikipedia is not a place to right great wrongs. Fringe theories may be excluded from articles about scientific topics when the scientific community has ignored the ideas. However, ideas should not be excluded from the encyclopedia simply because they are widely held to be wrong. By the same token, the purpose of Wikipedia is not to offer originally synthesized prose "debunking" notable ideas which the scientific community may consider to be absurd or unworthy. Criticisms of fringe theories should be reported on relative to the visibility, notability, and reliability of the sources that do the criticizing.
Wikipedia is also not a crystal ball: While currently accepted scientific paradigms may later be rejected, and hypotheses previously held to be controversial or incorrect sometimes become accepted by the scientific community (such as plate tectonics), it is not the place of Wikipedia to venture such projections. If the status of a given idea changes, then Wikipedia changes to reflect that change. Wikipedia primarily focuses on the state of knowledge today, documenting the past when appropriate (identifying it as such), and avoiding speculation about the future.
Now, Enric, how closely do I need to parse this for you? To provide some hints, I have bolded some of the text above.
If I choose to challenge the Fringe science category, I will delve into the details. For now, that is way on the back burner; but what has been done is to exclude reliable source on the basis that the research was "fringe," or that the journals were not of the stature of Nature. That position neglected that Nature withdrew from the field almost twenty years ago, so the "Nature position" is very old. Essentially, on this topic, today, what was in Nature is only of historical relevance. When we look at the research and publication that ensued, the questions raised by the negative results published in Nature have been answered. There remain many mysteries, but certain issues have resolved, among those working in the field, and, while they remain controversial among a more general panel like that involved with the DOE in 2004, with no clear consensus being found, the indications are more that this is what WP:FRINGE calls "emerging science." The LENR community is no small community. It runs conferences, it has its own peer-reviewed journal, but it also publishes in independent peer-reviewed journals. In spite of being underfunded, in spite of the weight of massive rejection based on institutional inertia (which is part of a story about the institutions, not about the science!), work is continuing, with very significant progress in the last few years. If you have made yourself truly familiar with this field, especially with the negative literature in 1989-1990, you will be aware of the significance of 100% replication (He, 2007 review), helium correlated with heat and at the appropriate levels to be the primary nuclear ash (many publications), and neutrons (Mosier-Boss, 2008). The only one of these three that hasn't been widely confirmed in specifics is the least important, but the most notable! That's the neutrons, of course. Quite simply, it is now well-known that the primary ash is helium, that the primary radiation produced is alpha particles, which is simply energetic helium, and that neutrons are a product of some rare side-reaction. But still devastating to the theory that low-energy fusion, aside from muon catalysis, is impossible!
Against the position outlined above, there is Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Fringe_science#Fringe_science, which concluded: 1) In this ruling, the term "fringe science" refers to matters which purport to be science, or use its trappings and terminology but are not usually regarded as such by the general scientific community; and to matters which do not claim to be scientific but nevertheless make claims that are normally considered within the purview of science.
See also from this case:
Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Fringe_science#Prominence. Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history, medicine and science.
Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Fringe_science#Advocacy. Wikipedia is not for advocacy. The purpose of an encyclopedia is to state neutrally the current knowledge in a field, not to put forward arguments to promote or deride any particular view. In particular, conjectures that hold significant prominence must no more be suppressed than be promoted as factual.
So, Enric, what is the "current knowledge" with respect to Cold fusion? --Abd (talk) 22:33, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
The unnecessary length of your posts is becoming a "huge" (joke) problem (serious). You are defeating the object of communication, and your long posts are not of a benefit to the project as they are making it more difficult to understand what is going on and discuss anything on the talk page. They are becoming disruptive, though I hope that isn't your intention. Please write shorter, more concise posts. Verbal chat 14:47, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
The length of my posts is necessary. It's a well-known problem for writers, Mark Twain referred to it in a letter. "I'd write you a briefer letter, but I don't have time." I have a standard suggestion: If you think some is tl;dr. There is no obligation, no necessity to the project, to read long talk page posts. If I'm dropping a warning on your talk page, it's my obligation to be succinct or else the warning may later be considered ineffective. If I'm justifying a revert, and you ignore it because it's too long, and the reason wasn't otherwise apparent, you'd have a defense against edit warring. There is some usage of collapse boxes, which can make the conversation more accessible, overall, but it is, again, work to appropriately collapse without distorting. So, if you want to help, fix the problem. It takes work. Are you volunteering?
As to the object of communication, there are two types of communication: polemic and discussion. Discussion does not have a fixed goal, beyond some general mutually desirable goal. Polemic aims to convince, based on some pre-existing conclusion. My long discussions are just that, discussion. If you want polemic, ask for it, but don't complain if you are then excluded from being part of a consensus formed. Discussion is voluntary. Watch out for polemic, it can poison consensus, and do not confuse the two. You are not the first to do so. Skilful polemic is brief, putting strong pressure on a point or narrow line, like a knife. I know how to do it. It takes far longer, unless and until one becomes, perhaps, very skillful at making a certain cut.
One more point. I have ADHD, it's a very clear diagnosis, not marginal, indeed, I could be a poster boy for it. To require me to be succinct when discussing would be, effectively, to require me not to discuss. I could do that. But I'd much rather seek consensus, and that interests me much more than any possible POV I could push, which is just about what I'd be limited to if I don't discuss.--Abd (talk) 15:01, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
No, the length of your posts is not necessary. Your literary allusions, metaphors, similes, and other rhetorical devices do not aid understanding or add to your posts. Your posts are closer to polemic than to discussion, and are becoming disruptive. Work on them offline and redraft them if it will help, as you are not communicating effectively. For example, your digression about polemic and discussion could have been condensed easily into one concise sentence without any information loss. Another example is that there is no reason to bring up Mark Twain. Telling people to not read your posts is not helpful. I will be asking for more input on this if you continue to write essays and polemic on the Cold Fusion talk page, and to treat it as a forum for discussion and original research. Verbal chat 15:08, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
You are welcome to your opinion, Verbal, thanks for sharing. I don't tell people to not read my posts, but I write for those who are motivated to read. There are, what, six million registered editors. Not one of them is obligated to read what I write. If any one of them thinks that it doesn't belong on the Talk page, they are free to remove it without even reading it. I or other editors will then respond. It takes no longer to remove a long post than to remove a short one. It takes very little longer to scan a long post looking for the end and a response from another. I'm working heavily on Cold fusion at this point, and the vast majority of that work is off-line, researching, I've accumulated a small library, and am beginning to come to conclusions about where I think the article should go. Until then, I'm discussing what comes up. Yes, it's more than some editors are used to, but "some editors" are not used to editors who work hard on a topic. I'm not excluding them, they lose nothing from those talk page posts. I could take your post here as a warning, but I'm not at all clear what I'm being warned about. Is there a guideline on length? Show me so I can comply. However, above, you rudely dismiss and reject my comments. This is my Talk page, I can mention Mark Twain here if I want to. I will say this: your intervention here is not helpful. I've suggested how you could be helpful, but that would require that you become familiar with the issues at the article. It's impossible to judge if my discussion is necessary oar not unless you understand the issues; you have a personal standard of what is "too long," based on your own personal needs.
Verbal, I have over twenty years of experience with on-line discussion, starting with the W.E.L.L. in Sausalito in the mid-1980s. I've encountered the tl;dr objection many times. There is nothing wrong with tl;dr. What is offensive, though is tl;dr SO SHUT UP!
I just wrote something on Wikipedia Review, and quite a number of editors came back with tl;dr as if they were being smart and saying something that wasn't obvious. But I wasn't writing for them. Another wikipedia editor emailed me and thanked me for what I'd written. See, Verbal, I was writing for him, on the issues raised by the topic there, and for anyone else who cared to read. Not for the close-minded, knee-jerk, opinionated without knowledge, many who too often dominate conversations with their pithy witticisms that do nothing to resolve conflict. Want to help, Verbal? Wake up and start. Otherwise, please go away.
Until you provide a guideline being violated, your warning here is ineffective.
But to pick up on one possibly useful fragment from what you wrote, your digression about polemic and discussion could have been condensed easily into one concise sentence without any information loss. Perhaps you are better than that than I am. Could you show me? I'll note that this is classic editor-writer dispute, it could be an editor complaining that the writer doesn't do the editor's job. --Abd (talk) 15:48, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Something was said above that I should respond to. (I bet that jed, and maybe Pcarbonn and other cold fusion proponents, are telling you off-wiki that your comments are very appropiate and that you keep going, but you should be taking their input with a sack of salt, after all the talk page comments of Jed and Pcarbonn paid an important role in getting them banned so they haven't exactly shown that they know what you can put on a wikipedia talk page and what you can't! I am not a wiki guru, but at least I manage to not get myself banned)

That's correct. However, I once wrote that, if you are never blocked, you aren't trying hard enough to improve the project. I wrote that before I was ever blocked, and I got, from it, positive comment from Wikipedians far more experienced than I. That's obviously not to be taken literally, because some people do get lucky and do serious work without getting blocked; but more often, just as children learning to walk usually stumble and fall, learning to deal with serious conflict on Wikipedia without taking flak takes practice. (Actually, the flak is inevitable, it comes with the territory, but, with a skilled editor, flak usually does not result in loss of ability to fly.) There is one exception, and it's pathological. I.e., if you "work" on supporting a majority POV, you may get away with incivility and other offenses that would get any advocate of a minority POV, and sometimes any advocate of consensus NPOV, blocked quickly.

(1) Pcarbonn. Pcarbonn has said practically nothing to me, you can see almost all (all?) of our communication on his Talk page. He has no influence on my work. I regret his loss, and I consider that an error was made, but it would be disruptive at this time to pursue that. Several issues on which I'm working would prepare the way to address this nondisruptively. I will note that the major editor who battled with Pcarbonn was also, more recently, banned, and his behavior had long been totally outrageous, but was supported by a significant faction, and an ally of his succeeded in framing Pcarbonn's work as motivated by an outside agenda, which actually should have been practically irrelevant, if Pcarbonn's actual behavior satisfied guidelines. In the end, Pcarbonn's ban hinged on the fact that he wrote a quite good article for New Energy Times about his Wikipedia experience, framed as an admission of considering Wikipedia to be a battlefield. It's a battlefield, we should get over it. The problem isn't that -- which is simply a fact, Wikipedia is a place where factions battle -- the problem is behavior that violates civility and other policies, including edit warring. Editors who comply with policy, so-called "civil POV-pushers," we actually need more of, not less of.

(2) "Jed." I.e., Jed Rothwell. Jed is a notable expert on the topic, he should actually have an article, I've got plenty of source for it. But I'm not starting it right now, too much else to do. We occasionally correspond. I informed him of the He Jing-tang paper, which he was unaware of. His general comment is that Wikipedia is a waste of time. You have to understand that some editors here have an inflated view of the importance of Wikipedia to someone like him. He doesn't need us. But he knows the field intimately, and he voluntarily withdrew from editing articles in 2006, thus satisfying COI guidelines, confining himself to Talk. We should have encouraged this, not blocked him for alleged offenses. In reality, the only offense was incivility, and this is common among experts dealing with people who know much less than them about a topic, and particularly when these relatively ignorant people are themselves uncivil. It's possible to deal with a problem like this without banning the editor, usually, but what would have been needed to be done was not done. Rothwell was blocked improperly, which is not to say that proper process would have resulted in a different conclusion, except that proper process would have allowed alternate response from him. Instead, he was given no incentive whatever to comply with civility guidelines, he gained nothing by complying, and lost nothing from sanctions. He didn't need Wikipedia links for pagerank. His site is highly notable, referenced all over and in RS.

(3) Jed Rothwell has provided me with a list of peer-reviewed publications supporting excess heat. We probably should have this on the project, I'll put it up if I can. This is obviously verifiable. There are other, earlier lists in RS, so, really, what his list would contribute is text (not necessary to retype) and possibly a few new or otherwise missing listings.

(3) (other proponents). I've corresponded with one other proponent, whose conclusion for some time matched that of Jed Rothwell (waste of time). Much of the correspondence was cc'd between him, myself, and another highly respected editor. None of it was about article content or my Talk page posts; rather, it was about certain overall process issues that affected that editor.

(4) It seems that the vision you have of a Wikipedia editor is very, very different from what a classic encyclopedia editor would do. A classic editor would actively communicate with experts, would not just sit back and look in the books and magazines. It's impossible for a non-expert to soundly review and produce a balanced report without active consultation, because it is far too easy for a non-expert to judge the importance of assertions in publications. Overall balance where there is conflict is satisfied by communication with experts on all sides. So there is supposed to be some problem if I discuss the topic with a notable expert? I'm quite aware of Rothwell's limitations -- and I'm frank with him about them. I won't reveal what he writes, but some of it I don't take with salt, I don't take it at all. He's a human being, besides being an expert. We all are the former, for sure.

One more point. Our coverage of Cold fusion is quite deficient compared to what it could be if we actually seek consensus instead of battling to maintain some POV ("fringe" or "anti-fringe"). I'm doing what ArbComm's suggestions on this require. You are actively invited to be a part of that. Your choice. I do suggest that you try to imagine that I know what I'm doing. It's not like I have no experience! --Abd (talk) 16:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

And another. Enric, you wrote: You say that you won't edit war and that you will let others editors judge on your comments, but you reverted two of my three collapsings.... [20][21] Apparently you will only accept "'friendly' and selective collapse"[22].... You also say "(...)Don't try to stop others from reading it, but efforts to organize what I've written into what should be on top level and what should be collapsed are just fine(...)"[23] Putting all together actions and words, it looks like you are decided to have the last word on what gets collapsed in your comments and why, never mind what you state about letting other people decide.

I only accept collapse that does not damage the conversation. "Accept" refers to initial action, not to "Over my dead body." I am far more disposed to accept "friendly collapse," but collapse from editors arguing tenaciously against what I'm saying isn't friendly usually friendly. Nevertheless, I'l accept it if it does no harm. A single revert isn't edit warring, it's a statement. (There are conditions where it is edit warring, but they don't apply here.) How do you get "last word" out of what I will immediately accept or not? You collapse my text. You might have noticed that much (Most?) of your collapses have been accepted, in whole or in part. But if I don't see it as helpful, I have the choice of saying, no, I prefer not, and it is silly to discuss something like this, at this point, and I do this with a single revert. If it goes beyond this, yes, discussion is crucial. You are discussing here, that's okay, indeed, a good thing. Better than edit warring! If you revert me, you are definitely making a repetitive edit, which is into edit warring, as would I if I reverted again. (It could be defined tighter, such that my first revert is the boundary, but I set it a bit higher on talk pages, since the presumption is that we leave other editor's talk alone, normally.) I take the initial collapse as a good faith attempt to improve things. But I should be able to say, no, I don't think so, without wasting a lot of time. Reverting at that point is efficient. "Letting other people decide" refers to the overall process. I write, you collapse. I accept or revert or, sometimes, refactor and rewrite the collapse header. Depends on how much time I have and how important the collapsed material is. If someone else thinks that, no, this is better collapsed, that other person can revert me, and I may accept it. I will not revert that collapse myself, but, depending on the circumstance, I might discuss it and might ask someone else to revert again, though usually I will conclude that it doesn't matter than much. After all, it is all still there. Collapse is a lot nicer than deletion!

Enric, I'm going to recommend something, I don't know if it will work with you, but sometimes it does. Please reread this entire discussion here and see if you are succeeding in assuming good faith and if you are attempting to find consensus, which would imply helpful criticism, not accusations. If you realize that your comments were not as appropriate as you might have thought, apologize. It's simple and it clears the way for further cooperation. We have already cooperated, but I don't think you are aware of my longer-term plans. There is nothing nefarious about them, but they are not what most editors might expect. You can ask what I'm doing any time. It's not secret. It's merely esoteric to some. --Abd (talk) 21:34, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

RFC JZG3

Hi Abd, even early on you can see a clear feeling has emerged that you are beating the dead horse and a super majority of users commenting so far support my call for a topic ban on you. I would ask you even at this early stage to carefully consider whether you are prepared to a) respect the opinions of your fellow editors by withdrawing the RFC and B) agree to drop this crusade voluntarily. If not, please be aware that I will be raising the issue for community endorsement on an involuntarily basis if (as I expect) the weight of opinion remains where it is. Please think this through carefully. You are a passionate and committed editor. No-one wants to sanction you if you can just decide to stand back on your own, but please be aware that this crusade needs to end and it needs to end now for the good of the project. Spartaz Humbug! 19:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Spartaz. There is no crusade, there is an RfC, entered and certified. You are seeing, in the RfC, an initial pile-on which is fully to be expected where the editor is involved. For reference this is now called Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3. (I named it JzG3 to start because the previous RfC was named JzG2, but, of course, there is no user JzG3, nor one named JzG2).
I request that you point out to me where I've been carrying on a crusade, I've been mostly silent about this for the last month. The evidence of attempts to resolve the dispute shows considerable opinion that there is a problem, so I am merely raising the problem formally, with evidence, so that the community may consider it. What's the "dead horse," please explain? There is a very, very simple solution to this: JzG acknowledges that he has violated policy with respect to use of tools while involved, and assures the community that he will not do it again. Because this is the goal that RfC states, it would make the RfC moot, in effect, and I'd support speedy close under those conditions.
However, without that recognition from Jzg (what's so hard about it?), I have every reason to expect that, once the community's attention is distracted, the behavior will resume. It is important that he acknowledge the violation, because, if he can't recognize it, he can't know when to refrain and when not to refrain. This was clearly established with Physchim62 and Tango, they were desysoppped not because they made mistakes, but because they appeared to be incapable of recognizing them.
Anyway, thanks for asking. If I take any specific actions which you consider disruptive, or beating a dead horse, please let me know, the presumption is that I will stop unless others comment, to the contrary, that my behavior is appropriate.
So, as to that, have you read the comment by Coppertwig in the RfC? What do you think about it? --Abd (talk) 20:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
One more point. I'm trying to understand your point. The RfC asks a specific question, and the "supermajority" you refer to have not addressed that question. If this comes to a close, should the closing admin consider the responses of those who did not address the question? What I'm seeing, among those who addressed the question, is consensus that JzG should not act as he acted. So what is the position of the "supermajority"? It's not clear to me, beyond a diffuse "JzG good, Abd bad." --Abd (talk) 20:26, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
The "dead horse" is the notion that Abd's activities are "wasteful drama". This idea has already been considered and rejected here. At Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Abd/JzG, Abd was told by many users that RfC was the appropriate forum, though Abd hesitated: "I had not intended to escalate to RfC so soon, and had requested that JzG suggest a meditator" and "I cannot promise to file an RfC because, I still hope, it will become unnecessary".
I note that Spartaz' statement includes "while I agree generally with Fritpoll's advice to Guy on how to avoid future complaints of thus type", which is in essence in agreement with the basic overall message of the RfC. I'm under the impression that in ancient Greece, if an accused person was found innocent, the accuser would be punished; I would hope Wikipedia is more advanced than that. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 22:10, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, man, but I have had a discussion at my talk page about my certification of the RfC, and it seems that I was mistaken: users who certify a certify a dispute are also endorsing the statement of the RfC. Now, your dispute with JzG is too much different than mine, my concerns are almost completely different, so I'm having to pull my certification. You'll have to ask someone else to certify the RfC, maybe Copperwig or GoRight, I don't know. Again, sorry for failing you :( --Enric Naval (talk) 01:08, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

No problem, Enric. Spartaz correctly reset the clock to start when he moved the RfC back to uncertified, I think this is exactly what I suggested on your Talk page. And it's all moot now, because Durova and Petri Krohn have now certified. They were the ones I'd identified as previously attempting, on JzG Talk, to address the issue of use of tools while involved. See, the blacklisting and edit warring at Martin Fleischmann and block of Jed Rothwell and all that were not the point. Those could all have been, in the end, correct in terms of outcome, but use of tools while involved is one area on Wikipedia where process policy is crucial. It's a bit like edit warring: it doesn't matter if you are right, violate 3RR and you can be blocked. I know what to do when faced with a tenacious IP editor reverting junk back in. I don't do more than a couple of reverts, if that, I go to RfPP and it's fixed in minutes. I've seen editors blocked for enforcing policy, many times. You don't enforce policy by violating another policy.
Now, as to your support of my ban, in the RfC, well, it's harder to take that in a friendly way. I've found your edits at Talk:Cold fusion lately to be problematic, you have been asserting things based on sources where the sources don't substantiate your claims. That's actually dangerous, and it has gotten editors banned. I'd suggest not doing it. This is my Talk page, not yours, so you can take this or leave it without hazard. It's a friendly comment, at least to some degree!
By the way, precedent I've seen in prior RfCs is that sanctions for one user are not determined through an RfC on another. There is good reason for that, though it can be frustrating sometimes. Actually, in theory, RfCs don't determine sanctions, but that one seems to be ignored. JzG's RfC cannot involuntarily desysop him, but it can pave the way to an ArbComm case which could.
Do consider one thing: look at the comments supporting the RfC, which actually address the issue raised, which is not "Is JzG Good or is Abd bad." It's deliberately a question so simple that some editors refuse to consider it, maybe because they don't like the obvious implications: "Was JzG involved with Cold fusion? Did he then use admin tools with respect to it or editors involved with it? Is this against policy?" There is no comment which explicitly answers these questions in the negative, though there are plenty of comments which ignore the question, but pile in to support JzG or to attack me, which is irrelevant. Those people are making it more likely that JzG will lose his admin bit. --Abd (talk) 05:44, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Wow, you got your RfC certified by Durova, not bad for being your first RfC :D
No, I don't think that I'm going to get banned for my interpretation of sources in Talk:Cold fusion.
I don't see how those comments could have an effect on JzG finally getting desysopped or not... The evidence and comments presented at an eventual Arbcom case should carry way much more weigth on deciding that. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • JzG cannot be desysopped by any process short of ArbComm action, unless he voluntarily resigns, or there is emergency action from "above," which is very rare. Not sure what you mean by "those comments." The RfC lays out (1) evidence of involvement, (2) evidence that tools were use when involved, (3) evidence that Jzg was warned without response. The RfC itself is generally a prerequisite for ArbComm acceptance of a case. The RfC was narrowly composed on one single, simple issue, and, as expected, many editors have tried, and they tried (and sometimes succeeded in the short-term) to make it into a content dispute, or disruption, or some kind of vendetta. In fact, when I began this process early in January, and approached JzG with regard to his out-of-process blacklistings, I had no negative history with him, and on the contrary, he had been helpful to me. I was surprised at his intransigent response, most admins would have said, "Oh, you're right, I probably shouldn't have done that myself. What do you suggest? I can take it to a noticeboard." Then I started finding other problems. But the RfC doesn't raise those issues. An ArbComm filing probably would.
  • I was dealing, slowly, with disentangling the web of damage from JzG actions. Doing it quickly is disruptive. You saw one small piece of that, the situation with the link to lenr-canr.org. It's one step at a time, which allows focus, allows clearing the table of distractions. But I also uncovered problems with the blacklist. Again, I did not attack or directly confront the blacklist process, but have dealt with several examples, the most notable being lyrikline.org, which is still globally blacklisted but which is not effectively whitelisted here (and in de.wikipedia). My concern, in the end, is not JzG, at all, but community structure that allows abuse to go on a long time without effective community response, when the abuser is popular. JzG could defuse the immediate situation immediately by acknowledging that he violated administrative policy, and promising not to do it again, and I have no plans to pursue him over any of the other stuff I dug up; you can see much of it in the histories shown in the RfC, but, notice, that the histories (in the collapse boxes) are complete, they aren't cherry-picked. What was brought up to the top level is, of course, but just to show the depth of involvement.
  • I have never attempted to get an editor banned over a content issue, and, in fact, I don't recall any attempt to get any editor banned over any issue at all, but sometimes I've raised issues that resulted in a ban. For example, sock puppetry. For what I've seen of your editing, Enric, for it to earn you a topic ban would take far more than what you have already done. I'm concerned about several incidents now where you made statements, providing sources that either didn't support the statement, or which provided raw, literal confirmation but which, overall, implied the contrary of your assertions. This kind of thing can evince an intention to prove a point from sources, rather than presenting or aiming for NPOV from sources.
  • Above and in the RfC you can see what I was up against. It was expected. And do you think I'd have filed the RfC, or, previously, compiled the evidence in the deleted evidence file, if I didn't also expect that wider consensus would support what I've seen? If I didn't expect significant support from respected and experienced editors? JzG and Spartaz and some others would like to believe that I'm on some crusade to support Rothwell. No, I'm on a crusade to reform the way that Wikipedia treats experts. Rothwell was uncivil, he's blunt and caustic, both in what he wrote here and off-wiki. But lots of experts are like that, they imagine that knowing a field well gives them some edge over those who have only casually perused a few sources. If that!
  • With someone like Rothwell, I would rigorously insist on compliance with COI and civility policies, but I would always want to know his opinion of article text or sources, provided he expresses them in a professional way. And I would defend him against incivility in the other direction. The incivility I saw directed at him was worse than what went in the other direction. If you support his ban, you should consider the implications. Or do you believe in some double standard?
  • The two other editors who had tried specifically and recently to resolve the dispute with JzG over abuse of tools were listed by me in the RfC. I did not know for sure if they would certify, but .... I know Durova, and considered it likely, and Petri Krohn, as I recall, was one of the few editors who noticed and questioned some of JzG actions with respect to Cold fusion, which brought my attention to the matter in the first place. I knew nothing of the history at Cold fusion. He, and some others, were pretty cynical about the possibility of doing anything. But policy is clear here, it's not marginal, and rules about use of tools while involved are crucial, for the protection of all of us. Today it might be Rothwell, but tomorrow it might be you, if you tangle with an abusive administrator or one of his friends. (One of the more chilling comments in the RfAr JzG filed, after my comment there, was one in which an admin appeared to have offered to block on behalf on JzG, and, in fact, he went ahead and did that, without any justifying incident. I see stuff like this fairly frequently, most of it I'm unable to do anything about, because of the level of disruption that would be involved. In the end, it was, in that case, moot, because Rothwell doesn't want to be unblocked, he doesn't care.) --Abd (talk) 01:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3 and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3 during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Guy (Help!) 20:08, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Guy, you have seriously entertained me today. I really didn't remotely imagine you'd try that bit of wikidrama. I'm sorry for the distress that this may be causing you, and suggest one thing: Don't think about me and what a dick I seem to be, but read the RfC and ask yourself, "Was I involved?" -- given the number of edits shown and the clear POV demonstrated, and which has continued to be demonstrated, even through today? And "did I use tools when involved?" And "Is this allowed by administrative policy?" If you don't realize that the answers are Yes, Yes, and No, you are dangerously unqualified to be an administrator and if you don't resign, you will be desysopped by ArbComm. That's not a threat, it's a warning and a prediction. Obviously, this isn't something I could do myself if I wanted to.
And if you do realize those answers, then there is a simple response: Change your response to the RfC to "Oops! My bad. I won't do it again." I can't withdraw the RfC, it's too late, even if I wanted to, but it would greatly defuse the matter, and you might keep your admin bit, if you still want it. Last chance? I don't know. I think that if, halfway through the arbitration, Physchim62 or Tango had made that "my bad" statement, they'd still be administrators. Don't say I didn't try. --Abd (talk) 00:43, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Advice

Hi Abd. In your dealings with JzG, do try to avoid sarcasm. [16] I know he's been rude to you, and that reflects poorly on him. On the other hand, if you are polite toward him, it will reflect well on you.

I know we disagree somewhat on this matter, but it does not impact my collegial relationship with you. Good wishes to you for springtime. Jehochman Talk 03:38, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah, Jehochman. That wasn't sarcasm. Every word was meant literally. Look at it again, try to read it that way. Anyway, yes, the spring is fabulous. I've written you an unfortunately long email. I consider disagreements as consensus in process. You can't really agree until you have explored the disagreements. --Abd (talk) 04:12, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
True. The crocuses are up already. Deer have eaten my tulips. Next we shall have daffodils. Jehochman Talk 04:25, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Hmm. Abuse is abuse, whether it takes the form of calling somebody an asshole, or blocking them whilest engaged in a content disagreement. I for one do not see the point in a third RFC. If there is really something there, I'd go right to WP:RFAR and take care of it. ArbCom will directly hear complaints of serious admin abuse. That's what you're alleging. If things are as clear cut as you say, I think they'd hear the case. Jehochman Talk 04:58, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
I wouldn't object. Yes, things are clear cut. My preference, on principle, is to give JzG an opportunity to reverse course. But as long as there is this cheering section telling him that he's done nothing wrong, that isn't likely to happen. Frankly, I don't understand that segment of the community. What do they think they are doing? Are they so naive as to think they are helping him? --Abd (talk) 05:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
They are going on reputation rather than facts. That's why RFC is possibly unproductive in this situation. ArbCom is more sophisticated than the peanut gallery. They can analyze evidence on its merits. However, now that an RFC is filed, you probably have to let it run its course. I don't expect Guy to publicly admit error, but he might become more careful going forward. If not, go to WP:RFAR next time. Jehochman Talk 05:22, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Go to RFAR? Guy already brought his topic ban of Rothwell to RFAR and the arbs didnt see what the problem was. This dispute is officially moribund but Abd still can't see that (no disrespect to your motivations Abd but there is a clear consensus on this) so suggesting that they take it back to arbitration is well, not the most productive idea. Spartaz Humbug! 07:53, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Spartaz, I don't think you read that RfAr carefully. It's cited in the RfC. The request was rejected, and properly. Carcharoth was explicit. They did not rule on the request. Yes, initial comment was favorable to JzG. Kind of like the RfC, in fact, and perhaps for the same reason. Yup, ArbComm is more sophisticated than the peanut gallery. When they follow process. Otherwise, they are just editors. Process, except to accept or reject a request, did not begin. --Abd (talk) 11:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
I dislike RFC because it usually doesn't resolve anything. Guy's situation is not improving at all through this process. Once his habitual enemies jump on the bandwagon, he will never compromise in any way. (This is exactly the result they wish for.) It would be much more helpful if somebody he trusted were to speak with him about these matters. Wikipedia is not a game to see who we can get banned or desysopped. The rule is try to help people, or keep quiet. Jehochman Talk 13:35, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • RfC can clarify the issues. It takes a good eye. In this case, you might note, there is practically no defense on the merits, there are two "defensive" positions. One is that the actions were good. That's debatable, but, really, the debate is inappropriate, because if there is any substantial segment of editors protesting (two willing to stick their necks out would be enough) there is no presumption that they were good. They were made. He got away with them for a time. Some editors approve, some don't. That's all we know and can assert. Oh, and it caused disruption, and the RfC is actually a small part of that. The other argument is that JzG did nothing wrong, this is a vendetta. Okay, let's assume this, that I'm a complete jerk and would like to see the editor die. Immediately. I should be infinite blocked, because I want to fill the project with links to lenr-canr.org (a limited goal, no more than one per article, more would certainly be linkspam, eh?). Now, what does this have to do with his behavior? He's an admin, part of the requirement for that is a thick skin, admins are going to be criticized and even attacked. They are respected to be able to respond without use of tools, and it's easy to do that. Put up a tab to report personal attacks, and press it instead of "Block." Before this, pick up a diff of the attack. Then a diff to the attack, done. I do this with page protection and it's usually granted within minutes. But, Jehochman, I'm not an admin and I don't report personal attacks against me. I'd be pretty busy! (At least at a time like this.)
  • Beyond a rather vague claim, some have stated, that "JzG did nothing wrong," there is no defense on the merits. At this point, a standard close based on arguments rather than numbers would be to confirm the complaint. JzG was involved, he used tools. And this, then, if he does not resign, or otherwise satisfy the requirements (i.e., acknowledge error and promise not to do it again), it's fully ripe for ArbComm. A close based on the numbers would properly be "No consensus." But it doesn't matter, the RfC does not prevent going to ArbComm, though ArbComm will often be reluctant to accept a case with an ongoing RfC. The close is almost irrelevant except for informing the parties as to the level of consensus existing. At this point, there is clearly a dispute, without immediate prospect of resolution. That's not a bad finding, in fact, it isn't useless.
  • It would be much more helpful if somebody he trusted were to speak with him about these matters. I've been begging for someone to do this. For months. Jehochman, does he have any friends who aren't caught up in the factionalism? This, alone, could be a sign of the problem. You mention the "habitual enemies." Suppose they didn't exist. JzG was not forced by them to take the actions he took while involved. My challenge of these actions wasn't as an enemy. I simply saw a sign of the dispute and investigated without prejudice. So what you are describing, Jehochman, is a sign of a deep problem that is unlikely to go away. If what you have said is really true, JzG, quite simply, cannot continue as an administrator unless he were on a short leash. (This could be done. The short leash would be immediately replaced with removal of the bit if strict behavioral rules were violated, and there would be short-process to make a determination of that. The simplest rule would be that the tools would not be used at all except in defined, pre-announced situations. This would allow preservation of helpful work in non-controversial areas, such as fighting true spam. Actually blacklisting, no, but proposing links, which is what he should have done in the first place, yes, and being able to see deleted contributions would be, I assume, helpful. --Abd (talk) 19:18, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I've tried to gently drop clues. Did you notice? Has JzG done anything wrong within the last 30 days? Perhaps he has taken the point, even though he has not made a public statement. Check my outside view. There is a problem with the RFC in that it tries to force an apology. We never do that. The most you can ask for is an undertaking to follow standards going forward. Even forcing an admission of guilt is problematic. I understand that the rule is thus, and I will follow it should be an easy thing for any editor to pledge, and should be sufficient for our purposes. Could you reword that section? Jehochman Talk 20:46, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
I understand the issue (forcing an apology). However, JzG's reliability as an administrator has been impeached. The issue isn't apology, as such, it is assurance to the community that it won't happen again. There are two parts to the resolution. First, JzG shows that he understands the problem. He's not being prosecuted for a criminal offense, the issue isn't "guilt." There is no charge of bad faith in the RfC. Everything I've seen is consistent with the view that he believes he is acting in the best interests of the project. If he doesn't understand the problem, there can be no assurance that he won't do it again, even if he promised compliance, because admins act alone and often in ways that the commmunity never notices. It took weeks to notice the blacklistings and the IP block of Rothwell, the blacklistings were only noticed because, I think, somebody tried to revert JzG's edits and couldn't. (As was unfortunately typical, the removals were not discussed or mentioned on article Talk.) I didn't see the December blocks of Rothwell until I started looking for other examples of admin action while involved, so, naturally, I looked at the block log. Apology would merely be one symptom of understanding; further, I'd suggest, if he understood the problem, he'd recognize the damage that has been done, and while I understand it's difficult, I'd be concerned about an understanding that doesn't result in some kind of apology. Once understanding is established, the assurances that he will follow the rules is not a difficult step. If he takes that step without understanding, violation is practically assured.
I'm aware of the drastic dropoff in editing. Has he done anything wrong in the last 30 days? I don't know. He's been quite inactive. That may or may not be related to the pressure. I haven't been tracking him. His response to the RfC was pretty bad, I'd say. MfDing the RfC? What all this shows is a lack of the balance we expect from administrators. However, I will look at the RfC and consider restating the desired conclusion to try to make the pill less difficult to swallow. My goal is not to humiliate JzG. It's a little sloppy to change it now, but ... hey, IAR and all that. This whole thing could be over in a flash if JzG would find someone reasonable as a mediator, promise to trust that person's judgment on this, let the person negotiate for him, and then follow up. Bottom line, though, it's essential that he show understanding of why all this fuss arose, why experienced editors would be concerned and even his friends would be saying, well, of course, he shouldn't have done it this way.... but JzG has never acknowledged that he shouldn't have done it the way he did. And his response to the RfC is simply defiant and shows problems deeper than may be resolved with loss of an admin bit. He was eager to apply the Cold fusion arbitration to Rothwell (not to mention Pcarbonn; the Pcarbonn impeachment relied heavily on framing by JzG -- "framing" means the way in which facts are presented to create an impression). Maybe the SA arbitration should be applied to him. But this is really moot, right now. Admin bit. Use of tools while involved. I fear that nothing I can do to make it easier will be enough, but I'd love to be wrong. --Abd (talk) 01:42, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Abd, I know you're open to sometimes editing your comments in response to feedback, for example your edit to the "desired outcome" section of the RfC, which is why I'm hazarding this message. For almost all of your message to JzG, I can see that it's sincere advice, but specifically the bit about entertainment I'm not sure of the purpose of and I suggest that that part is unlikely to be taken by JzG in a positive spirit and would perhaps best be deleted. I'm also unsure what you're thanking him for, since it's my understanding that you would prefer an outcome that doesn't involve him losing his admin bit, so possibly the thanks part could be deleted along with the entertainment part, although I don't know how JzG would interpret a deletion of thanks; an alternative might be to explain what you're thanking him for, if such explanation is likely to be seen as something positive by JzG; otherwise the thanks may seem sarcastic or along the same lines as the entertainment part. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:10, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) The entertainment was a fact. I laughed, not a laugh of contempt, but a genuine laugh of surprise and wonder. If JzG was carrying on a bit of street theatre, I'd call the MfD brilliant. But, then, I do fear that he's serious, and he imagined that the community would support his MfD, which, then, is quite sad. There was no purpose to the comment about entertainment, it was simple honesty. This is my Talk page, consider it like my home. JzG, if he came to the door with a subpoena, would be treated with civility and respect, and I'd invite him in for tea or coffee if he had time. I do understand that it can be taken other ways, and I regret that, but at this point, redacting it would help nothing, the diff is being used as evidence of my nastiness. The thanks for the notice was simple courtesy, and, yes, if I deleted it, it would be, in effect, saying "No thanks." But that wouldn't be true. I thanked him for the notice, and I meant it, not as some kind of effusive gratitude, as if the notice was above and beyond the call of duty, but the way I thanked a police officer one time for informing me that a charge of child abuse had been raised with respect to me, and she wanted to talk with me about it. Look, I've had to deal with situations far, far more stressful than anything that could happen here, and I've navigated them with instinctive ease. The officer and I had a great conversation, the charges went nowhere, perhaps because (1) I did not become defensive but was fully disclosing, and (2) I already had discussed everything underneath it with two therapists (the child's therapist and my own), and both of them, per their legal responsibility, had already notified the responsible Massachusetts agency, which had already ruled "no abuse," plus more that I won't even mention, beyond saying that I gave the officer the child therapist's phone number and called the therapist and gave permission for discussion.

Becoming defensive and angry about people who complain is one of the most efficient ways to make a small problem into a large one. The woman who filed the charge was violating small-group confidentiality because she was, herself, quite disturbed, and unable to make rational decisions. She seized on the bad stuff from my own report, and completely neglected the other side I'd mentioned, which included everything the officer needed to conclude that her job was done. Because it affected other people, the officer revealed that there had been other complaints from the same person about another, I confronted the issue at the next meeting, not naming the complainant. But everyone knew, as I had when the officer explained her business. After the meeting, the woman came up to me and apologized profusely. When people cannot admit error, small problems become large ones and large problems become impossibly difficult. Consider that unfortunate woman. She may be sick in some ways, but she knew that she had screwed up, and that she could face that and apologize -- I'm sure that was not easy! -- is quite a hopeful sign about her future. --Abd (talk) 18:05, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Arbitration

Hi Abd, I realise that we are on contrasting sides of the RFC and that you will not therefore be particularly open to my input on this but I was dismayed by your suggestion on he RFC talk page that you might take this to Arbitration. Last I checked the most endorsed sections of the RFC were Guy's response and my section suggesting that you are beating a dead horse and are in danger of being topic banned from Guy and Cold Fusion. The RFC outcome is already clear. Essentially the community mostly accepts that Guy acted reasonably and that this should drop, albeit there is a thread of thought that I also partially endorse suggesting greater care to avoid the impression of admining under a COI. With respect to your side of the debate, and with due to respect to some of those endorsing sections, but I did notice that lots of editors endorsing are what me might call the "usual suspects" in that they already have well known and hostile entrenched opinions about him and many of the other endorsers are opposing sides of the debate to Guy. My reading is that the vast majority of uninvolved commentators are not supporting the anti Guy rhetoric. To read the RFC that this now needs to go to Arbitration now looks like harassment to me and a failure to understand or listen to the emerging consensus. You asked for community input and have got it - that the community does not appear to be endorsing your version of the dispute is not the point. RFC is for getting outside input and you should, in my opinion, accept that judgements and now let this go. Obviously, its always possible that the balance of the RFC will change but its been open long enough that the rough consensus is already clear. Spartaz Humbug! 14:51, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

  • I'm completely open to your input, and I hope you do not mind if I consider it thoroughly, agreeing with what I can agree with and delineating disagreements that may remain. That's what I do, I hope, in spite of the fact that some don't like it.
  • Yes, if you look at numbers, what you say is what you will see. What happens if you look at arguments? Do we make decisions by numbers or by arguments? (My answer: both. And it depends. In fact, we make decisions through a hierarchical process which engages higher levels only as needed to find broad consensus, and while majority opinion may prevail at lower levels, and the minority may effectively decide that it's not worth taking it up the DR ladder, that right remains, and may be exercised later, as long as there are two editors signing on to a decision to escalate. And, if I'm correct, a single editor can still go before ArbComm (but is pretty likely to get a rapid decline to consider.)
  • Your reading of the sense that what is consensus is that admins should avoid the impression of COI action is shallow. Yes, such impression should be avoided. But JzG did far more than create an impression of COI, there was the reality of COI and action clearly designed to support a POV and personal interpretations of policy, not supported by the editorial community active with the related and affected article. The links he removed were there by consensus, and they were not placed by a linkspammer, not by Rothwell, who did not edit articles since 2006. One was placed by Pcarbonn, but another was placed by LeadSongDog, who is a critic of cold fusion. We should avoid the impression of COI, true, but impression of COI can be defended. The reality of COI cannot. If two-thirds of the community thinks there is no reality, well, they believe something that cannot be supported by evidence, to the contrary. It happens.
  • I would not have undertaken this process if I did not have reason to believe that there was substantial discomfort in the community with the violations of administrative policy, and the present RfC simply brings up one article and related actions. There are others, but in this one, the involvement was blatantly clear. I also know some precedents here, both ways. The sum: given that the RfC has been compiled and presented, and assuming some conclusion that does not represent a clear consensus on the points raised in the RfC, there is an arbitratable issue, and I expect that, with one possible exception, an immediate request based on the issues raised in the RfC, would be accepted, and would, unless JzG changes his course, in loss of his admin bit. The exception is that the RfC is still open, and it remains possible (though perhaps unlikely) consensus will appear. So ArbComm might prefer to wait. Your argument above appears to claim consensus for a closure which would not be accepted by those concerned about the behavior, though you have not proposed a specific closure, and Jehochman was a bit vague. Hence, if you are correct, then as soon as an independent administrator has so ruled, but consensus is not sufficiently broad to resolve the concerns, the door is immediately open to ArbComm.
  • Do realize that one argument that has been presented to me (by Jehochman? I forget) is that I should just go to ArbComm, period. I.e., that the RfC is a waste of time, people aren't going to agree anyway. I disagreed, and said that the RfC, if nothing else, will clarify the issues and the nature of the division in the community. And that's a good thing. And what I've been saying is that if JzG supporters, by attacking me and by defending the content effects of JzG's actions in violation of involvement rules, as if those effects justify the actions, are simply increasing the probability of this going to ArbComm. Instead, if these editors prefer to see JzG retain his admin bit, they should help him to overcome his resistance to admitting error. That resistance is a fatal flaw for an administrator, we would never grant the bit to an admin if we knew the editor can't do this, and, for too long, we have tolerated admins like this. The goal is not to get rid of JzG, the goal here is to affirm the policy about admin action while involved. All the arguments made for JzG's continued admin status without the admission of error sought have been raised before. They failed, and admins lost their bits.
  • My reading is that the vast majority of uninvolved commentators are not supporting the anti Guy rhetoric. That's right. Spartaz, I am not supporting the anti Guy rhetoric. That there is such rhetoric is unfortunate, but it does point out something: there is a certain level of serious discontent with JzG as an admin, and possibly as an editor, though I think most of the "rhetoric" is about admin behavior, the problem for these people is that an admin is behaving like this, when admins should be models of something quite different. That's not the issue before the RfC, but it may help to place the RfC in context, i.e., why it is important that the issue be faced, directly. Action while involved has been creating ongoing disruption, both below and above the level of wide attention. It is not just this RfC, those attacking me over this RfC are attacking the messenger. Much of this disruption is invisible. If JzG blocks some unknown editor abusively, we are likely to never hear about it, unless someone notices it and complains. Every administrator should be open to such complaints, and should deal with them with detachment, recusing quickly at the slightest reasonable doubt about neutrality. There is no shame in recusal, to the contrary. And all this has been covered in arbitrations before.
  • As to the "usual suspects", sure. JzG has stepped on a lot of toes. You won't see an RfC like this about Fritzpoll, for example. I once warned him that if he stuck with a certain position, he was risking his bit, and I essentially got slaughtered over it. However, what I told him was theoretically true, but I had no prior knowledge of him, and the necessary condition for it to be true, that he'd stick with the point and defend it to the bitter end, quite simply would not happen with him. He'd respond, he'd admit error or recuse, etc., and what happened at that time was that he was functioning under diminished capacity because of personal or off-wiki conditions, and my long comments were simply more than he could handle, but he also felt that he couldn't just say tl;dr, he is far too polite, so he was stuck. And I knew nothing about the problems he was facing, yet an editor was suffering under an abusively-placed ban (Fritzpoll was not the abuser, but simply became a closing admin, after I pointed out that he'd been acting under the assumption of a community decision, when there had been none. No close.) Note, Spartaz, that ultimately my position was vindicated, the ban was lifted by Fritzpoll. You might also notice who granted me rollback, I didn't even ask for it. Now, as to usual suspects, I notice a specific constellation of editors calling for my ban, and, naturally, supporting JzG. I've seen these editors before; as an example, see the !votes in WP:Requests for comment/GoRight. Quite simply, many of the !votes aren't surprising at all, there are only two votes that were unsettling for me in any way. One is Fritzpoll, though I understand him pretty well, and he's the kind of guy who instinctively defends people, and the other is Beetstra, who is quite capable of and engages in "extended discussion" that tends to find consensus, so his considering my discussion of his comments on his Talk page as evidence I should be banned was truly shocking. And, guess what? He's still engaging in extended discussion with me on my Talk page now. His page or mine really should make no difference (except that it being on my Talk page proves it's not harassment from me). So I still don't understand that comment, and, I assume, we will ultimately get to it. It's not urgent, the RfC is not a political game to see who can get the most votes, and I don't feel there is any risk of my being banned, and if I was banned, I assume that there could be quite a bit of good come out of it, which might not be to the liking of the one who bans me. (That's not a threat, it's a warning, and the difference is that the consequences would follow without action on my part; after all, I'd be banned.)
  • Please note: I have no opinion on whether or not it's better for me,personally, that I continue editing Wikipedia, and I would fully respect any ban or editing restrictions. In fact, any admin could at any time drop a note on my Talk page and say, "You are banned from editing such and such," and, aside from normal appeal from such an action, and without admin reversal, I'd respect it.
  • I not only understand how this place works, Spartaz, I also understand, in some cases, how it should develop. Something that may not be obvious to you: I have over thirty years of experience with consensus process. I know how to do it, and I've seen supermajorities reverse themselves once discussion was complete. The process is famously tedious with large communities, but successful large communities channel the necessary discussion into small groups. We allow individual editors to make content decisions, when there is conflict between two, the two discuss it, and if they cannot find consensus, then larger numbers become involved. At the normal top level, a body of trusted editors makes decisions by vote, but that body normally recuses itself from making content decisions, but only behavioral ones, leaving operating consensus as the normal content decision process, and ArbComm's job is to make sure that the consensus process doesn't get warped.
  • Spartaz, if you think I'm doing something wrong, and if you think that we are done discussing it, pick someone you think I might trust -- if you think my lack of trust in you is the problem -- and ask that person to intercede. I'd listen to anyone, but if you want more likelihood of success, Fritzpoll, maybe? --Abd (talk) 17:43, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
    • I'm sorry but there is no way I have time to give you a substantive response to this tonight and I'm busy all day tomorrow. I'll be honest as well, I'm completely disinterested in your ideas on how wikipedia should govern itself. I'll just leave you with one thought Abd, you don't understand how consensus in User RFCs work. By the time its got to RFC its no longer possible to reach a consensus by discussion and that is why User RFC's are set up as a straw poll - because by this stage all that is left to to gauge community support for each position. RFC is the closest thing to a vote that we have outside RFA/B and the community is sending you a very clear message that its going to be time for you to drop this after the RFC has closed. The thing is, you need to accept that too which is why I strongly suggest you find someone neutral (completely neutral) you trust to help you understand where the consensus sits because, I'm afraid, you clearly are not getting it yourself. I really hope that we don't have to find out which way the community will go if the consensus remains the same at the end of the RFC and you choose to ignore. If I have time to disgest and consider this further I'll come back to it in coming days and add more. Spartaz Humbug! 18:01, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
      • At your leisure, Spartaz. You came here and you have made a request, asking me to consider it, and I have. If I have missed anything, you can raise it or leave it, it is totally up to you. You have no obligation to respond. While I mentioned thirty years of experience, that's said not to try to intimidate you but just to suggest that there might be more here than you see. I see RfC in a different way, because RfC is the first process where, routinely, rules restricting discussion arise, and it is more difficult to derail the process with tendentious argument over irrelevant points; rather, the process encourages delineation of issues, it moves toward the deliberative process that ArbComm will use. If you are correct, Spartaz, then if the RfC closes without the community clearly addressing the issues underlying it -- which isn't me and my alleged disruption --, and my position is idiosyncratic and unsupported, and I decide to go ahead and file the RfAr, there are several possibilities, one of which would be that I'd be topic banned or something even stronger than that. Another would be that the case would be dismissed as not worthy of consideration; in that case, if I continued to debate it, I'd, again, suffer some sanctions, I'd predict, less formally, by community process. On the other hand, please notice the support for the RfC, and the dissent, and reframe this as if it were a case before ArbComm. What, realistically, do you think would happen if I or someone else files? First of all, all the evidence here would be, effectively, placed in evidence there, with no further work required, if the RfAr remains confined to the admin COI issue, something I'd endeavor to do, I do know what the precedent is. If people want to make other complaints about JzG, that's their business, it's not mine. I will not venture to make any firm prediction about the outcome, but I will say this: I will fully respect whatever decision ArbComm makes, if it takes the case and rules, but I might leave the project with certain possible outcomes. I think those outcomes unlikely, but, Spartaz, if you are right, that would indeed be result. I have no crystal ball, just some ability to see what's coming down the tracks, sometimes.
      • If there is error in the evidence, now might be the time to point that out!--Abd (talk) 18:24, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
      • One more point: that I would "ignore" the results of the RfC is not an option for me. Ignoring it would mean that I'd continue to "complain" about JzG admin involvement, etc., in spite of an apparent majority. Going to ArbComm, however, would not be ignoring it, it would be following due process in the contingency that I disagree with the majority. The community does not have the right, by majority vote or even supermajority vote to prohibit appeal to ArbComm, or to create sanctions for appeal. ArbComm may sanction abusive appeal, so it would make that decision, not the editors who piled in quickly to !vote in the RfC, and who may not have the foggiest idea of the issues. Or may, but also may have an axe to grind, like those editors you mentioned who have a grudge against JzG. There is decision by vote, in practice, in RfAr and RfB, but not with RfC. Period. That you think RfC is decided by vote shows me that your understanding of Wikipedia process is seriously deficient. Or, more accurately, of how Wikipedia process is designed, because, yes, some admins seem to think, as you show, that !votes count, instead of cogency of argument. In reality, there is some proper consideration of votes, but arguments more generally control. I've argued that an admin should never close a discussion contrary to the administrator's own opinion, based on !votes alone, excepting clear snows, and that many abuses result when that happens. Well never say never, there are always exceptions that are possible if rare. But that's another story.--Abd (talk) 18:38, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

RfC talk page

Hello. This is a comment about your edits to the talk page of the current RfC on User:JgZ. Please don't post a summary title for a section that you did not create. You do not WP:OWN the talk page. You cannot presume to categorize the discussions there. Your edits seem disruptive at present. I wonder whether you could please leave the non-descript title "subsection" and not add further subtitles of your own? I wonder also whether you could also take this opportunity to remove the word "trolling" from one one of your contributions, which appears to be a personal attack. I do not intend to contribute further to the talk page. Many thanks, Mathsci (talk) 22:03, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

You added a subsection title above my comment, separating it from your comment to which I was replying. You are right, I don't own the page, what would make you think I thought so? I was surprised to see you remove my replacement of the non-descript title with one which simply introduced my comment as a response to your question. I already refactored the word "trolling" based on your request there, immediately upon seeing your request. "Trolling," as used there, was a synonym for "asked" which implies some level of impropriety; however, that's not necessary, so I replaced it with "asked."
As to adding subtitles of my own, we are all free to do that, so you can take a hike on that one. I left your "subsection" in place, using a lower level for a new subsection of my own that repeated your question. If that's biased, well, it would be your bias, not mine. I can categorize any discussion I like, with the goal of organizing it. WP guidelines actually suggest refactoring Talk, but it's rarely done. It's work. It should never be done to push a POV, and especially not to distort what editors have written, but rather to make clear the issues and help focus discussion. Expect to see a lot more of that. Like anything else, here, it's subject to consensus. If anything else I say offends you, ask. I often refactor stuff on request. I do that naturally, I didn't learn that from ScienceApologist, but it's one of the things he did properly.
As to abstaining from posting to that page, good move. I'm not quite sure what you were trying to accomplish there. The RfC has a tight focus, and, hint, it's not about my behavior, nor about cold fusion, nor, indeed, about the value of JzG's positive contributions, and I'm sure there are many. It's also not about desysopping JzG, which would, unless he consents, require further process, and my hope has been, all along, that this would not be necessary. The RfC is an opportunity to clarify the issues, i.e., what actually happened and what are the policy implications. JzG could have violated policy six ways till Sunday and that does not automatically desysop him. Because a desysopping recommendation is theoretically possible, though consensus on that would seem extraordinarily unlikely at this point, it's mentioned in the desired outcome, which I will quote for convenience as it stands now. Proposals for amending it are in order, and I will support proposals that I think could enjoy broad consensus. To answer one comment that has been made by you or by Hipocrite, I don't claim to represent consensus, I claim to be seeking broad consensus; narrow consensus (and in this case, 2/3 consensus that leaves 1/3 of the community dissatisfied on an important matter is still narrow) is highly inefficient, it causes conflict to be maintained, and articles become Sisyphus' mountain, and then there is the not-minor detail of participation bias.
The community affirms that action while involved is improper, and confirms that JzG has done this. JzG assures the community that he recognizes the impropriety, and that such actions will not be repeated, and he himself reverses, or consents to the reversal of any of these actions still standing in effect, by any other administrator. Alternatively, he resigns his administrative privilege or it is removed by further process.
The "alternative" resolution describes what will happen if the RfC does not find consensus supporting JzG, and a substantial segment is left behind, dissatisfied. So: JzG admits nothing, provides no clear reason why the community should continue to trust him with an admin bit, even though he has clearly violated policy (in the opinion of this segment). This situation has been arbitrated before with different characters. ArbComm has been very clear. What was described as desired outcome is what I can predict ArbComm will decide, if it goes to them, and hundreds of editors could pile on at this point and it wouldn't make any difference, unless those hundreds of editors represented the most thoughtful of editors, and they show that by addressing the issues. I.e., what carries the day is not numbers, but cogency of argument. I have no fixed positions on anything.
To summarize one important point: the RfC does not ask the community to decide about the admin bit, it is not asked to recommend desysopping. It's just asked about:
  1. was JzG involved?
  2. did he use the tools while involved?
  3. is this acceptable behavior?
Is it so hard to answer those questions? The answers do not automatically desysop JzG, but if his friends deny that the very questions are important and relevant, they will be in a poor position to defend him against desysopping. --Abd (talk) 23:01, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

On topic

Put your remarks where they belong--on the optics talk page or on my talk page. Editors on Talk:optics are discussing the edit and whether it is allowed in light of SA's ban from en.wiki editing, and what can be used, if anything, in light of that ban. The point of asking at arbcom is to find out if there's an issue with using it, in light of the ban and in light of the discussion of the ban on the article talk page. Now, if the current arbcom showed a lot of ability or restraint or knowledge about their mission, not posting at arbcom would have been fine, but that's not the case--read some of their recent decisions, this one about SA in particular. Posting at arbcom was the correct and most direct route to settling the issue being discussed at talk:optics. No continued amount of discussion there or anywhere else would have handled it as directly as this.

Thanks for assuming I acted without all of the information then addressing me while ignoring all of the information. Don't worry, no need to respond, the usual reversion with an accusation of trolling will suffice.--KP Botany (talk) 00:50, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

KP Botany, beware of WP:ABF. I don't revert edits to my talk page with accusations of trolling, unless it has become so totally obvious and blatant that any response is a total waste of time. That's rare. I posted comments in two places: on SA talk, where I saw your edits there, as did another editor I respect very much, as uselessly provocative, but I left your notice of the AE request, and, in fact, gave it a section header, then I suggested to SA that there wasn't anything there that he needed to get exercised about. I then commented at the AE page, supporting the view that the edits here were not SA's responsibility, that he does not violate his topic ban -- at all -- by writing whatever his heart desires somewhere else. If there is "meat puppetry," the meat puppet is the one responsible. It's different from sock puppetry. I haven't looked at the Optics Talk page, but notifying a banned editor of discussions here is not necessarily a good idea, it can create an incentive to violate the ban. I knew where the AC discussion was going, it was totally a foregone conclusion. I think you have your answer. Wikipedia editors are free, providing they respect the licensing issues and copyright, to use content from elsewhere. In discussion at Wikisource, I think that the opinion was being expressed that an admin here could unblock SA and allow him to make that one edit, then reblock. In my opinion, that admin would then be responsible for the article, but the licensing would all be proper. Please remember, the goal here is the encyclopedia, and is never to punish an editor; we block or ban to protect the project, and when improving the project is helped by suspending a ban, as in this case, WP:IAR suggests allowing it. This is a far cry from allowing SA to edit articles, it's very pointed and specific. If the edit itself is controversial, no presumption has been created that the content would be kept, but it appears that SA's goal was to be the first banned editor to contribute an FA. I'm all for it. And SA might as well be a dedicated enemy of my work here (from his POV, not from mine). His friends are trying to get me banned. That ought to be a clue, KP. --Abd (talk) 01:14, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is just an encyclopedia

Just remember with all the time you spend in discussing conduct wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Its just a website. Dr. Blofeld White cat 11:23, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

OMG, and all this time I thought it was a blowfish. Obviously, I need to adjust my medication, I've completely lost touch with reality. Fortunately, it's a wiki so any mistakes I make can be fixed by others with clearer vision. --Abd (talk) 13:59, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I think Blofeld was trying to be friendly. Sarcasm may be counterproductive here. Fritzpoll (talk) 14:08, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I did not take the comment as hostile. This is my Talk page, and my hope was that Dr. Blofeld would laugh.

Indeed the Bald One is laughing. The Bald One thinks you need a breath of fresh air and go have some fun! Go whale hunting or something or look for some blow holes. Dr. Blofeld White cat 17:41, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

This is actually a typical way that I get into trouble with people in RL. Some of my social "habits" developed at Caltech, where everybody was genius level, and how I responded is how I would have responded to a Techie, i.e., a peer. Dr. Blofeld, if my response offended you, I apologize. I did see the comment as friendly.
Among friends, when one friend says the obvious to another, my kind of response would be common; there is an edge of criticism there, and, so the response contains an edge of criticism represented by sarcasm. Human interactions are extraordinarily complex, there can be many levels going on at once, and, classic phenomenon, I've seen it since my first days on The WELL, the written word is very low-bandwidth, compared to what takes place in person, where there are very high-bandwidth channels of communication open, and what could take volumes to write can be transferred in a glance. I also spend a lot of time with people, in person, discussing matters of depth, where honesty is greatly valued and mutual respect as well, and I've raised one complete family of five kids, and am now working on the second with two girls. One skill learned is not to tell people the obvious as if they did not know it, it's often ineffective in terms of modifying behavior because we have instinctive mechanisms defending us from outside control. There are far more skillful means of transferring experience, which, I can hear the sighs of relief, I will not describe now. On the other hand, if your goal is to change my behavior, rather than help me to expand my understanding and make better decisions on my own, well, I won't repeat the appropriate comment, at least not now. If we were in person, I'd say it and you would see that I was smiling and not about to attack you, and you would probably laugh, unless your own intent was hostile. --Abd (talk) 14:30, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
One skill learned is not to tell people the obvious as if they did not know it, it's often ineffective in terms of modifying behavior because we have instinctive mechanisms defending us from outside control -- this is food for thought for me. Also, related to this behaviour is the fact that I tend to explain things in a linear fashion and I sometimes have to state the obvious first before I can move on and expound on it. Sorry for tramping onto your talkpage discussions, but I find your comment interesting. Rfwoolf (talk) 14:45, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Stating the obvious as part of your explanation of your own ideas is quite different from commenting on obvious aspects of the behavior of others, with the goal of modifying that behavior. Indeed, stating the obvious can be a method of developing rapport, as long as it doesn't have the edge of an assumption that the other doesn't see it and needs to be informed by the wise one. Look, the basic rule of human communication is quite the same as WP:IAR. It's really about showing up and being present to the situation, the real person in front of you. It can be a slow process in writing, very tricky. A poet may be able to do it in a few words. --Abd (talk) 14:57, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikibreak.

I'm taking a wikibreak, probably short, to attend to personal business. I'll be checking my Talk page periodically and may do some work here in my user space. I also check my email about once a day. Though it may be tough, I do imagine Wikipedia will survive my absence for a few days. I can also hear the sighs of relief, and I'm glad to be able to brighten anyone's day. 'nuff said. Please remember, reading my Talk page is optional. --Abd (talk) 12:07, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Hounded off. Sad. I have been too, many times before. It is so terrible the way that editors treat other editors here, passively agressively pushing editors off wikipedia, in a million different ways. Ikip (talk) 12:16, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
I haven't been hounded, Ikip. There is a noticeable lack of warning here, and no bans. Thanks for the thought, though. More later. --Abd (talk) 12:27, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
I will trust your judgement and remove my comments to the talk page of the RfC. I have found on wikipedia that sucess in an RfC has nothing to do with the oratory skills, or influencing other people in the RfC, it has everything to do with stroking editors egos and building strong alliances before hand. So the crucial question I ask you is: Who has the stronger alliance? Your evidence is secondary. Ikip (talk) 15:44, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Your analysis is correct as far as it goes. In the short term, relatively small factions can create an appearance of strength. Local concentration of editors with some particular interest can make it appear that they represent consensus. We don't know the truth unless broad attention is brought to bear, in a place where evidence and arguments are clear and simple to review. However, when push comes to shove, lower-level but expanded process remains warped because canvassing is prohibited. There are ways around this, legitimate and otherwise, but typically the structures are not in place that would allow for non-disruptive expansion when a dispute is entrenched. Therefore, Wikipedia ownership created a high-level process as a kind of representative structure, ArbComm. So, provided that editors at a lower level have the stamina and sufficient support to survive earlier process, the "stronger alliance" could refer to the stronger alliance at ArbComm, if we are cynical about it. On the other hand, by the time they are elected to ArbComm, editors may have reached a level of maturity that they will be more likely to focus on fact. The deliberative process at ArbComm acts, to some degree, to filter out distracting arguments, and "me too" pile-on is irrelevant.
As to strength of "alliance" at ArbComm, there are probably lengths to which most arbitrators are not willing to go to support their personal content or editor-value POVs. I attempted to imitate ArbComm process in the RfC, asking for specific response to very narrow questions on the Talk page. I know what the answers to those questions are, it's not really a question! The effort was reverted, and there is, quite simply, no reason to contend with that at this level, one issue at a time, please. If editors want to prevent consensus from forming there, and being clear, then this simply sets up even clearer conditions for going promptly to ArbComm. I could do that already, because there are two positions that could be taken, both of which would indicate going to ArbComm, (1) There is no consensus, or (2) There is consensus that the actions were contrary to policy. There is a majority view which is that JzG should be given a pass, and I should be banned, but that's actually irrelevant. The RfC was not set up to determine if JzG gets a pass or not, but simply to solicit community comment and seek consensus on the questions of policy violation. RfC's cannot impose sanctions, so deliberating sanction or the lack of it is premature. First question, is there anything to forgive? But I'm on wikibreak, and even if I weren't, I'd probably still be waiting, to see if initiatives like that of Jehochman, and others that we might not see because they are off-wiki, bear fruit.
It is very important that the question be resolved, because if it is not, history shows that JzG and his supporters or those who benefit from his actions in a certain direction will claim victory, that the matter was raised here and rejected, and thus JzG will be given a free hand, even if he, for a time, avoids directly confronting the restriction that was suggested but not required. So what happens at the RfC should be seen in that light. Patience, Ikip. It might become relevant, the evidence you have, or not, I'm not predicting what an RfAr will look like. In the mean time, thanks for making that move to Talk. It certainly won't hurt!
Basic wiki principle: when some jerk editor demands that you do something harmless, do it (presuming it is also easy). Pleased jerks are less dangerous. It's quite clear that if we, at the RfC, had tried to base the matter on incivility, bad content decisions, and the rest, those who support his incivility but are happy that he said it rather than them, because it leaves them without visible responsibility, those who support his content POV, and who may thus think the actions are not bad, etc., will so clearly carry the day that the one filing the RfC is at serious risk. The saying is, "If you are going to shoot the King, don't miss." To mature revolutionaries who care about possible harm from any revolution, the time to act is when support is so overwhelming that action is not disruptive, the new order simply takes over. Most revolutions, unfortunately, take place prematurely, so there is bloodshed and massive social disruption, even reaching down through generations.
I see tons of stuff that is "wrong." But I act on very little, because it would take more than a small nudge in the right direction to fix, and my resources are limited. There are people who are following my usage of dispute resolution process and who claim to be learning from it. I hope so. It's excellent, if people understand it and take it one baby step at a time. This particular incident was much more rapidly escalated than I'd have preferred, because there was clear, blatant intransigence from the other side, but not only that, action to attempt to crush the very process of dispute resolution. The RfC was, as to timing, forced. In fact, I didn't meet the deadline, the evidence page was deleted, and I certainly could have challenged that, but ... no benefit beyond some technical satisfaction of having "won." I don't do that. I had the file, and, besides, the deleting admin, without being asked to do so, emailed me the deleted wikitext.
The process works, Ikip, if it is followed; in a case like this, it takes some stamina and healthy doses of WP:DGAF. I will, eventually, as just one member of the community, and thus with lots of help, fix the RfC process so that it is more likely to find consensus rather than be simply one more battleground in a case like this. Before that can happen, I need to have at least this case finished and resolved, most other activities have been suspended pending. ArbComm will resolve the case, I have no doubt. If ArbComm rejects a filing that I've prepared or signed on to, that will resolve it for me just as clearly as if they had resolved in favor of what I was asking for, and then I would decide if it made sense for me to continue to participate here. If I'm a rat, as many think, I nevertheless have enough sense to desert a sinking ship; while those left behind smugly say, "Good riddance to rats."
The process that would take down Wikipedia is under way, but it is not yet obvious to those who have only short vision. So far, things seem to be working, more or less; what they don't see is the trail of wreckage, the fouling of the nest, the reservoirs of ill-will and resentment and distaste being built up, and increasing burnout by administrators facing the increasingly difficult task of dealing with floods of linkspam and vandalism, and the much more difficult problem of POV-pushing in violation of guidelines, or even satisfying guidelines, but insufficiently restrained. I know the solutions to these problems, quite well, but it will take time, and what I don't know is how long it will take for the community to recognize the problem and see the need for action. The JzG case is minor, in fact, there are much more difficult issues ahead. JzG is not the worst admin we have, he was simply unfortunate enough to come to my attention at a certain time, and once I saw what I saw, and knew that I could do something about it, and effectively, I had the obligation. I could not predict how intransigent he would be, and though others warned me (the first thing I was told, within a day or so of raising the issue, was that I would have to learn how to eat worms.) And, indeed, not only was a can of worms opened, a whole aisle of them appeared, it could take me years to address all the issues, given the way that it must be done, unless others join in the effort.
The "effort" is nothing less than the precise and clear application of Wikipedia policy and guidelines, with careful attention, especially, to civility and avoidance of unnecessary disruption, and with full respect for the intention and deep meaning of WP:AGF and WP:IAR. I welcome all who wish to join this effort, regardless of POV. Indeed, what we need to develop and make solid is an environment where all POVs are welcome and respect and invited to participate fully in the formation of consensus. None of this involves pandering to fringe or extreme positions, but if we exclude the extreme from the process, the extreme will exclude us from influencing them, and so we will have continual battles with sock puppets, IP vandalism, etc. Include them, be sure to give them whatever is harmless to broaden consensus, and they will be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
You might notice my efforts to assist ScienceApologist, who might theoretically be opposed to much of my work. These are not merely political ploys to create some appearance. I'd rather have him be participating, and all that I would insist upon is conformance to behavioral guidelines, strict conformance. And I'm totally happy to accept the same for myself. --Abd (talk) 16:34, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
With the utmost respect, WP:TLDR It is absurd the way some editors approach your talkitive nature in the RfC, it shows how weak their factual position is, but again, the facts of the case are secondary.
Again, Who has the stronger alliance? I think this is already vividly answered in the RfC itself.
Hope you haven't walked away and are still around for the innevitable sequals. Ikip (talk) 15:11, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
No, hardly. "Stronger alliance"? You seem to assume that strength consists of numbers of editors ready to make an endorsement without an argument. Endorsements are fine, but they may represent little more than some "sectarian" affiliation. We do not make decisions by vote, remember? Now, if I assume that the !votes are somehow representative of what a knee-jerk response would be from the average editor -- which is quite unlikely, by the way, the average editor does not follow RfCs, the average editor hasn't heard about this dispute at all, inform them and they might be outraged -- what the RfC has done is to show a gap, a difference of opinion among editors on a matter of weight, that is not likely to be resolved by continued discussion short of ArbComm. I assume that the RfC will not likely close in a way which helps resolve the dispute, though, in theory, it could; what if the closing admin actually reads the evidence, disregards irrelevant comments, and comes to a conclusion that policy was violated and recommends appeal to ArbComm to address the issue? One chance out of three, my estimate, if it is a random admin. In that case, the admin in question might cave and admit what he did, because the opinion seems to be reasonably widespread that if this goes to ArbComm, the decision will not favor him. Quite a few also think that it will also go against me. Maybe. So what? I have to be willing to take that risk, to address the problems I see. I will respect the decision of ArbComm, in any case. I have run this process, so far, in such a way as to create minimal disruption, beyond not accepting the unacceptable; I suspect that ArbComm will recognize that. Or not. It will be in their hands, not mine.
See User:Abd/New Energy Times and today's delisting request In case you don't recognize it, this was originally a blacklisting by a certain administrator, and when the original delisting request was denied, I focused on other more urgent issues, allowing him to argue that the community had ratified his decision, even if it was a little unusual, as one of his supporters mentioned. Time to deal with the specific problem. He's not relevant, actually, I only pointed to the prior actions as necessary disclosure and for the convenience of any admin reviewing the request. We have blacklisted the two most notable web sites relating to Cold fusion, on very weak or even totally inappropriate grounds; my discovery of this opened up a huge can of worms, hence my very slow approach. So, watch. --Abd (talk) 15:40, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I have to admit

Talk:Cold fusion in 9 April. Abd's comments are colored in light blue.

But the first bit of your edit sum made me LOL (in a good way) :-) Shot info (talk) 01:22, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Shot info. If you had removed Jehochman's comment, it could have been trouble, right? But I could do it without likely harm. Jehochman generally trusts me, I think. Given some of the contention there, though, I made it explicit: don't like my "bold" action, revert it, but, then, you will be responsible. My opinion is that the comment should not have been made there, we avoid debate within comment sections, or comments questioning the appropriateness of a comment; such matters should go on the talk page; if Jehochman really thinks a comment inappropriate, he could move it to Talk directly, the whole thing, but that's a tad rude. I removed it, but my goal was to assert the principle, not to demand compliance. And one of the whole points of the RfC is the importance of certain policies and guidelines and procedures, which are not to be casually ignored just because we like or dislike someone or something.
You know, if editors want to try to divert the RfC by attacking me, it hurts JzG in the end. I don't like that outcome, but do find the irony of it fascinating. Please, if you are one of JzG's friends, if that was an issue for you, consider looking at the substance of the RfC and helping him to understand it. It's not an attack on him, and if his actions look bad, well, maybe they were mistakes. We all make mistakes. They become truly problematic when we can't admit them.
JzG's friends are basically saying, "well, it was a mistake, but don't humiliate him by forcing him to admit it." That is one very dangerous position. The community will ultimately want to know that he won't repeat the error, and the only way to be confident of that, given the way that administrators work, is for him to acknowledge the error, and not just that he made a mistake (which could mean, really, "I allowed myself to get caught.") No, it should be about showing understanding of the policy. We grill admin candidates about stuff like this, and any candidate we suspected of having this problem with humiliation would not be accepted. The RfC is not about humiliation, and someone who will be humiliated by admitting an error cannot be an administrator. It's far too dangerous. --Abd (talk) 01:45, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
You know - not that I really want to go there, but you could have just said "thanks" (as the above could be an example of why you're not getting the support you need) - note I'm not a friend of JzG - but I view the RfC for what it is - if that isn't how you intended it to be, then bevity is your friend :-) Shot info (talk) 01:52, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Sure. But I'm "pushing" for people who might consider themselves JzG's friends to give him good advice instead of attacking me. So I took the risk. Bad bet? Well, good cause. I don't regret it. It's not about me, Shot info. The RfC itself was quite brief, but I'm afraid people read things into it that weren't there, and weren't intended to be there. --Abd (talk) 02:09, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
If you could be bothered to express yourself more effectively then people would be less likely to misunderstand your intent. Don't blame others for your refusal to communicate clearly. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:43, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I do not refuse to communicate clearly. I have limited time. It takes longer to write less. Go away, SBHB. If that's not clear, don't ask me. Ask someone else. --Abd (talk) 02:49, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
The other people (me, for example) also have limited time. It takes longer to read long meandering comments. --Enric Naval (talk) 04:33, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Enric, sure. If what I write is too long, please don't read it. If I want you to read something, it's my responsibility to craft it for you. I'm not usually crafting what I write for your personal needs, unless I'm in direct discussion with you. I'm writing for the community, and, indeed, only for some members of it, those willing to engage on deeper levels than are possible with brief, snappy text.--Abd (talk) 14:36, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
If I may chime in - I enjoy Abd's verbosity, but I agree much of it could be tightened. Firstly, usually (or probably always), his comments are coherent. Secondly, there should be nothing wrong with expounding and intellectualising a discussion, which usually makes for quite a few lines of text. On principal there is absolutely nothing wrong with screeds of texts so long as it is all coherent and relevant. Now, on the other hand if the long screeds of text are made maliciously, with long paragraphs that are completely irrelevant or incoherant and are done only to distract or detract then it could be a fair argument. But in this case I don't believe Abd's paragraphs, especially in the RfC itself are quite long enough / incoherent / irrelevant enough to be deemed malicious or unfair. However, I would say to Abd that there is a good point to be made here: if some of your potential concurrers find your verbosity too much, it would be detrimental to your case. I think it would be wrong to say "change your behaviour or who you are", but in the case of an RfC, consider tightening where possible. Just my 2c. Rfwoolf (talk) 09:57, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. I don't think that in the RfC itself, there is any problem with screeds. I do tighten. One of the claims made in the RfC, by an editor with a clear POV clash at Cold fusion, is that I "resist collapse" of my comments. I have reverted maybe two collapses or so. I've accepted many, and I often collapse my own text. It's just bullshit. (Not your comment, absolutely, brevity is the soul of wit, but ... it takes much more time, Mark Twain wasn't just making a joke.) --Abd (talk) 10:52, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Three, actually. one (1st April), two (1st April), three (2nd April. I complained here.
And, yeah, you have respected one of my collapsings[17] (so, one out of four), and you collapsed one discussion very correctly [18] and you collapsed one of your own comments when posting them[19]. That's one out of, hum, lots :p --Enric Naval (talk) 15:30, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
As I've said elsewhere, if anyone finds any of Abd's comments on any topic too long to read, you're welcome to ask me on my talk page and I'll probably be happy to summarize it. I'm serious: I enjoy summarizing Abd's comments, and prefer to be asked rather than trying to figure out on my own which comments to summarize.
I have in the past been asked to keep my comments short, and I've asked at least one other editor to do so. I often shorten my comments before posting, and I think it's generally a worthwhile thing to do since it probably saves others more time than the time it takes the original poster to do such shortening.
However, in Abd's case the situation is different. Abd has ADHD, and one of the characteristics of Abd's particular condition is that it's very difficult for Abd to shorten comments. Abd can do it, but it takes hours of work. Therefore I think it's a reasonable accommodation to Abd's condition to just let Abd write long comments. It takes less time for others to scroll past the comments if they don't want to read them, than it would take Abd to shorten them. And in my opinion, there are gems of wisdom in those comments.
☺Coppertwig (talk) 16:01, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Gee, I thought so too. I wouldn't bother if I didn't think so. People have come to me decades later and have said, "What you said changed my life," or "You were right, we just couldn't see it." Coppertwig took some flak for having summarized what I said, from someone who also complains about the length. This exposes, quite clearly, what's really going on. It's not the length, it's the projected (or possibly real) POV. Length is a cover. You don't complain about length from someone who is saying lots of stuff you like. I do often get friendly suggestions that I reduce the length, but, as Coppertwig noted, it is not all that simple. I have some choices: (1) Post as-is, which already includes some level of cutback. I do know how to use the delete key. (2) Cut down quickly, which involves deleting things that I thought were important enough to write about in the first place. (3) Rigorously edit, which takes lots of time, as I find ways to say what needs to be said more succinctly. I did it for the RfC, but, notice, there are still complaints about it. Editors will complain about what they don't like no matter what.
Editors sometimes delete, move to archive, or collapse my Talk text. I respond with several considerations: (1) how important is it? (2) what further response is likely, would, say, reverting it back lead to useless disruption? (3) Is there some way I can accommodate the editor's legitimate intent? I also, with increasing frequency, use collapse to give a kind of hypertext quality to my writing, with relatively brief introduction immediately visible, and then detail under collapse.
My basic advice to those put off by "walls of text" is to not read them unless they are interested. If it's important, they will get another chance to review any consequences, and maybe someone will summarize it (like Coppertwig, who is quite good at that -- I'm also good at it, by the way, I've been an editor professionally, but, hey, it's work). Or they can always look back at it, at leisure. --Abd (talk) 17:03, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, but your long comments fill and overhelm the talk page. I added an image to show what I mean. --Enric Naval (talk) 04:59, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Damn! I did not think I'd been working that hard. I see that when I take a day's wikibreak, Talk on Cold fusion goes to zero. I never write completely off-topic (except in the view of some, others would say, no, this is on our work here). The article has major deficiencies. I've been discussing those, instead of firing salvos with edits that are likely to be deleted first time, just because. I'm looking for some guideline that prohibits too much blue text. Congratulations on your hobby of coloring in text, that must have been fun. Did you stay within the lines? May I play with your crayons?

I'll leave it in place, it's kind of pretty. It's the kind of thing I like to do for fun. But not to be nasty. The only reason I'd do something like that would be to prove that a person was involved in the article. I'm involved. Very involved, I've been reading tons and buying books, which I almost never do. Maybe it's a good thing I don't have buttons, I might fix the article and protect it against the mindless anti-fringe POV you've been pushing against all evidence in recent reliable sources, and then you could file an RfC about my use of tools while involved. That blue chart would be crackerjack for that. Maybe if JzG had actually discussed the stuff he did, there wouldn't have been a problem.

Seriously, Enric, go away, I've got stuff to do that actually improves or will improve the project, and plenty of RL stuff as well, like working to insure my family's survival. Further unnecessary posting here by you, without permission, such as formal warning that I'm violating the policy against WP:TOOMUCHWORK, if you can find it, will be considered harassment, which I think you can find if you look hard. If you don't like it, you presumably know what to do, see dispute resolution. --Abd (talk) 11:18, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Enric, you may have missed my comment earlier in this thread where I talk about reasonable accommodation for Abd's condition and where I offer to summarize Abd's comments on request. Nevertheless, if you explain to me (in civil, objective, neutral terms) in what way Abd's comments are problematic for you (what concrete costs are incurred, and how), I'd be happy to help brainstorm solutions. If you'd like to discuss that, I suggest using my talk page, since I have the impression such comments are likely not welcome here. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 02:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

New Energy Times article

Hi! Just as a suggestion, I think you'll be hard pressed to show sufficient notability for New Energy Times. It might be easier to show notability for Steven Krivit and to have New Energy Times redirect there, although I haven't seen any knock-down sources yet that would definitly meet WP:Note for him - it's simply that many of the refs for New Energy Times are simply mentions that he founded it, and thus are really about him more than the site. - Bilby (talk) 03:13, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've been thinking so myself. At this point I consider it marginal. From a lot of reading in the field over the last three months, I know that the web site is, in fact, notable (by my own lights), same with Krivit, and I've been leaning toward an article for the latter instead. They really are interconnected, one is always mentioned with the other. But he's published books, articles. --Abd (talk) 10:55, 14 April 2009 (UTC) (For reference: draft article: User:Abd/New Energy Times. --Abd (talk) 10:55, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Abd/Notices#Advice_solicited_re_likely_appeal_to_ArbComm

Comments welcome, here, by email, or at User_talk:Abd/Notices/Comments. --Abd (talk) 15:31, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

It's essential that people must be free to express their opinion that the policy should be changed. Therefore, merely stating that administrators should be able to use their tools while involved should not be in any way sanctionable. On the other hand, if an admin states something equivalent to an opinion that they think admins are allowed to use their tools while involved under the current policy, and also does so themself, that looks worse than if they merely do so. The latter could be interpreted as mistakes that they can have pointed out to them and that they will learn from; everyone can make mistakes.
I suggest that if you make an arbitration request about this, that it be expressed as a request about JzG only. If the arbitrators choose to broaden the case they will do so. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 16:19, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Coppertwig. I'm assuming at this point that should there be an ArbComm request at this point, from me, it would be narrowly focused. --Abd (talk) 16:19, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

compliments

great post here. that non sequitir was taking on a life of its own and you managed to express what i believe everyone was thinking in a constructive way. untwirl(talk) 14:55, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Coppertwig is a brilliant editor, but I think got some bug about the "misquote." I know for sure that the goal of Coppertwig is to help people find consensus, so the point about the misquote was, I think, a general truth: people intensely dislike being misquoted, particularly when it looks reprehensible. But the particular example wasn't a strong one, because, while there was a misquote, if we expect full accuracy -- quotation marks don't necessarily indicate that, it depends on context -- the sense of what was being described appears to have been fairly represented. Remember, though, I did not research the underlying situation, I don't know all the back-and-forth that occurred, I just looked at a narrow slice, and when I did look at the A/C case and the discussion on this, I saw the tangled and twisted mess that takes place when communication has broken down. It would be much better to try to fix this kind of thing before it gets to ArbComm because the committee can tend to use blunt instruments. Articles will be better if editors with different points of view can be encouraged to work together in spite of those differences, and, indeed, the differences are necessary for the article to be truly neutral; a strong POV makes a very good POV detector for opposing POV imbalance. What happens, too often, before the A/C, is that one side gets blocked, the other side feels vindicated, and then goes too far, and then sock puppets or new editors appear, the article requires constant maintenance, battles continue. The only people who should be blocked are those who truly want to prevent genuine consensus from forming, and who actively disrupt the process, refuse to stop when warned, and blame everyone else. Coppertwig, I know, understands this and is, I'm sure, trying to get people to deal directly and civilly with each other. There are ways to do it. Suppose, by the way, if the editor who allegedly misquoted had not defended this with counter-argument. Suppose that this editor had said, "I'm sorry, I certainly did not intend to misrepresent ... here are the actual diffs to what was said, and, yes, I did not exactly quote, I summarized, using quotation marks, I apologize for any misunderstanding." That would not have conceded any important point, at all, would simply have reflected the truth, still, but *might* have avoided quite a bit of distracting mess. I try to teach my kids to apologize when someone is offended or complains and never to say, "But I was right," or "It was your fault," or "I didn't do anything wrong." Even when they are right, it was the fault of the person complaining, and they didn't do anything wrong. I *also* teach them not to accept blame. Apologizing for some perceived harm is not accepting blame, it is a social grace, not defeat. This is about treating each other with respect and seeking agreement even in the presence of differences. Talk is cheap, true, but when someone is unwilling to spend talk that is so cheap, what does it say? --Abd (talk) 17:04, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Sigh

Abd: I know we don't always agree, but I like to think we have a reasonably cordial relationship. I think, however, you need to be "warned off" (in a liberal use of the phrase) continuously referring to the fact that you want to take the JzG think to Arbcom unless you get the acknowledgement of wrongdoing that you seek at the RfC. There are several reasons to follow this advice, the most important being that it encourages beligerance on the part of his supporters, and this does not move you towards the cordial agreements that an RfC is supposed to seek.

Finally, with regards to collating additional "evidence" on the RfC talk page - if it is not to do with material you want introduced in the RfC, please take it off that page. The correct venue for an additional, new dispute is JzG's talkpage per WP:DR. It is a new dispute if it is not part of the RfC, and if it is (in your view) a continuation of themes presented, you should present it as an additional comment in the main body of the RfC - that is what RfC is for, after all: commentary.

I should add, none of these are formal warnings, and I am not here in an administrative capacity (given the fact I've commented at the RfC, this would be inappropriate). In the most polite way possible, I would rather not have a lengthy response to this, detailing JzG's transgression. :) I read it at the RfC page, but I am advising you to remove it elsewhere (not your userspace, please) Fritzpoll (talk) 12:53, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Fritzpoll, I understand the position you have expressed, I think. However, the comment is appropriate on the Talk page for the RfC, because of multiple comments that the RfC is inappropriate because the behavior is old. (i.e., if this is irrelevant, so would the other comments be, and I've seen no call for their removal.) I responded to Spartaz there. As to "continuous referral" to the likelihood of this going to ArbComm, given the history with the administrator, I think that needs to be very plain and clear. There seems to be some impression that stonewalling this below the ArbComm level will make it go away. I would greatly prefer to see this resolved below ArbComm, and what is being requested is very simple and is what, I believe, ArbComm will want to see in order to drop the matter. If the majority is correct, that this is frivolous and harassment, ArbComm will surely and quickly reject the request, and there will be less disruption, right? The current "transgression" is minor, I stated that, but added to the rest, not quite so. It indicates to me, though, that if this does *not* go to ArbComm, and if it isn't resolved short of that, the problem behavior, which nearly everyone, including yourself, admits is problematic, will continue, it's quite predictable given the history. --Abd (talk) 13:20, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Then you either need to make it part of the RFC or remove it. It really is that simple Abd. If you don't remove it then it will probably be removed and you might be sanctioned. Verbal chat 13:26, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Let me see if I understand this: you don't want JzG to acknowledge his alleged error, about which there is no significant doubt expressed in the RfC, but you want me to acknowledge my alleged error by undoing my action? I'm being threatened for making what I consider a relevant comment on a project talk page? I've elsewhere expressed the view, regarding JzG, that he is not to be forced to do anything, he is not the slave of the community. Neither am I. I'm not surprised by your comment, Verbal, the RfC is, apparently, a wedge that does not create but exposes some deep and important divisions in the community, which is why ArbComm consideration may be needed. I'm responding more specifically on the relevant page, Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/JzG 3. --Abd (talk) 13:43, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Threats of sanction against any party are not helpful here - I have asked Abd to move the text to the RfC main page if it is relevant - if it counteracts expressed outside views, then it is even more pertinent, Abd, and you should perform the move of text being requested. Placing it in a less open corner (using the talkpage) will not help change the minds you wish to change. Fritzpoll (talk) 14:41, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, Abd you should stop threatening JzG with "ArbComm" and everyone with further abuse of talk pages. Verbal chat 14:49, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
I have asked for other opinion on adding the matter to the the RfC, it would not be a move of the "discussion," but probably a new section on Recent action or maybe even just an addition to the list of admin actions taken. I will respect consensus on the Talk page regarding this. I disagree that the post was abuse, but I will probably move the section on the recent block to a subsection of the question from Rlevse, which it is a specific answer to. --Abd (talk) 16:17, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for taking our viewpoints into consideration, Abd - much appreciated from my point of view. By the way, you have e-mail Fritzpoll (talk) 18:25, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

New wave of attacks on SUCI page by puppet of User:Kuntan

There is a new wave of attacks on the page. I informed admins and they have placed a protection and block on the page. He also reposted the abusive and personal comments on User_talk:Sekharlk. And it seems that another puppet of User:Kuntan reported me to be a puppet of User:Suciindia! He also blames User:Bctcanji to be a puppet of me! Anyways, admins took a reasonable stand on this.--Radhakrishnansk (talk) 21:28, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

There is again sock puppetry by User: Kuntan. He is now calling himself User:Luckose. This name is refered in the article SUCI as the Kerala state secretary. I eamiled them (www.sucikerala.org) and received a response stating that the Mr. C.K Lukose is not active in Wikipedia and the party members have not created any either! So it must be another puppetry of User:Kuntan and so I have tagged the page as a puppet and marked it for speedy deletion.--Radhakrishnansk (talk) 11:51, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The banned User:Kuntan has returned as User:C K Luckose. He is linking the SUCI page to a blank page and is reverting by abusing me.--Radhakrishnansk (talk) 17:38, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Discussion with Jed Rothwell moved from Talk:Cold fusion

This discussion moved from Talk:Cold fusion per suggestion from Verbal. First comment from me remains there as well, is copied here for context. --Abd (talk) 12:54, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The discussion began with [20], Jed Rothwell commented, and edit warring began over allowing the discussion, please see the section above about this. My conclusion? The anti-fringe contingent is getting desperate, and are willing to violate Talk guidelines in order to make some point, I'm not quite sure what. If there is, on the face, a ban (justified or not), any editor may revert out a contribution of a banned editor, whether to articles or talk, but, then, any other editor may revert it back in if the editor is willing to take responsibility for the edit, this is well-established. Dissent? Change the guidelines or go to AN or AN/I. I'm not, I don't like to incite riots, and this is a matter where there is deep division, already on track to go to ArbComm. All but one of the involved editors have already expressed opinions on the division, and I'm not sure about the remaining one, so little or nothing was surprising here. --Abd (talk) 13:06, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

CBS Sixty Minutes to do a report on Cold fusion

preview

My comment: while it is possible that low-energy nuclear reactions could lead to significant energy production, it's far from obvious, and could take a lot of time and a lot of investment; the effect is obviously fragile and difficult to control and may not scale well. On the other hand ... Arata's little bottles of palladium alloy hydride that sit there indefinitely being warmer than ambient, steady, show that something stable can be made; however, with that concept and $100,000 worth of palladium, you could make a water heater and save on your energy bills. Further, I'm suspecting that the basis of the report is the SPAWAR neutron report, which actually does not show that "the energy of the sun" is responsible for the heat, because the neutron levels are way too low. It seems to be the other way around: an unknown nuclear reaction that starts with deuterium and ends with helium is generating sufficient energy to cause a small level of classical fusion, which is a side-show, not the main act. --Abd (talk) 02:41, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Arata's little bottles of palladium alloy hydride that sit there indefinitely being warmer than ambient, steady, show that something stable can be made; however, with that concept and $100,000 worth of palladium . . .
That's way off. The limiting factor is the temperature that thin-film or nanoparticle Pd can survive intact. You could generate as much power as an automobile engine does, using about as much Pd as there is in the catalytic converter. That's about $50 to $100 worth. That's assuming Pd is needed at all, which is doubtful. Arata's material can easily be improved and run at more optimum temperatures. His results have been independently replicated by Kitamura et al. using material from by another source.
- Jed Rothwell —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.224.69.121 (talk) 14:50, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Rothwell is an expert. In spite of the ban, in spite of the argument against my comment, I take responsibility for the above post, please do not revert.
He may be correct about scalability; however, no public experimental work has shown this; my comment stands with respect to what can be roughly inferred from the Arata reports of a 4 degree C. maintained temperature differential from a small reaction cell that is insulated, containing 7 grams of palladium, roughly $50 worth. We do know that the NAE (nuclear active environment) can be somewhat stable at the boiling point of water, or hotter, from electrochemical experiments, but, if I'm correct, small hot spots "burn" for a while and then go out. Arata has provided far too little data about his experiments to be sure about what is happening there, but if we discount fraud, which is extraordinarily unlikely, he is demonstrating continued, reasonably stable LENR, at low temperature; the power output, though, can't be determined from the data, though it might be inferred from his helium measurements, and I haven't looked at that. In any case, our concern here is the article, and the present report is of the CBS special coming on Sunday; the preview is stunning in its clarity, and it demolishes the claims that cold fusion is, any more, fringe science. It's cutting edge now, and we need to start treating it that way. (I.e., there is controversy and probably will continue to be controversy for some time, though closure might come fairly quickly if there are additional clear replications and more publication in journals that have been refusing to even submit papers for peer review.) The claims are now that prominent physicists and others have reversed their positions based on recent evidence. Maybe a few wikipedia editors, who should have been, personally, way ahead of this if they actually read the sources instead of just using them as tools in some battle over article control, might now start reconsidering, since the problem here arose from the disconnect between media sources ("junk science") or old peer-reviewed source (negative replication, and some "pathological science talk," and more recent peer-reviewed reviews and other peer-reviewed sources ("current science"). Now the media has started to pay attention, and the stories will be coming out.
I came to this article a skeptic, and remained so for quite some time; my concern was administrative recusal and blacklist fairness. But when I become involved with an article, I research it. And, yes, I discuss it, often at length. That's how I learn!
By the way, Jed is also correct to point out that commercial devices may not use palladium; perhaps nickel, for example. However, right now, the task facing the scientific community is to much more widely take the phenomenon seriously, develop theories or examine existing ones and rigorously test them, etc. In short, to follow the actual recommendations of the two DOE panels instead of how they were glossed by the media and too many scientists. ("Focused" funding became "no funding," in spite of continued replications.) I'd say it's urgent that the question of the existence of the phenomenon be resolved, and as well, a better understanding of theory and application, so the former recommendations of "no focused program" may no longer be wise; rather, my suggestion: fund the *critics*, challenge them to find an fix errors, and if they don't, given suitable resources and incentives, then ramp up funding on the engineering, and, with increased efficiency and reliability, if that happens, take it all the way up to or beyond hot fusion levels. Let the SPAWAR group build "plug-in" cells and provide them to skeptical physicists, take all the difficulty and mystery out of it for the skeptics, and let these physicists (mostly) figure out what's happening. If it's not fusion, fine. What is it! Telekinesis? I'm still not placing bets, except that it is very likely to be something that is, in effect, deuterium fusion, mostly. --Abd (talk) 15:18, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
This belongs here now, as well, it has much detail on the upcoming report. Note that NET goes beyond reporting, it also editorializes, which makes it problematic as reliable source, it's like taking facts from a newspaper editorial, which is sometimes done; caution is required. But we need to see the facts reported, I'd say, it's a massive reversal, a crisis point:
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2009/60MinutesTurnsUptheHeat.shtml
--Abd (talk) 15:52, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
The following had been posted by Jed Rothwell; I quote:
"Abd wrote:
". . . however, no public experimental work has shown this . . .
"Many experiments show better performance at higher temperatures. Arata's power density is nothing to write home about. His advantage is control and stability. Granted, these are crucial.
". . . We do know that the NAE (nuclear active environment) can be somewhat stable at the boiling point of water, or hotter, from electrochemical experiments, but, if I'm correct, small hot spots "burn" for a while and then go out.
"That's correct. But "small" hardly describes it. The work at Mitsubishi, the Nat. Sychrotron Lab and Toyota show that active spots are microscopic, and only a tiny fraction of the cathode surface ever turns on and participates. So, all they have to do is: increase surface area (as Arata has done); increase the NAE from 0.01% to 10%; raise the temperature and boom -- the cathode evaporates. That's happened several times. The trick is to increase the NAE and keep the reaction under control. The power density and temperatures achieved so far in a few cases show that only about as much Pd as is used in a converter would be enough to generate roughly as much heat as an automobile engine does. The main difficulty after they learn to control it will be engineering materials that survive the intense heat and continue catalysis, and that happens to be the problem that was solved to make the catalytic converters.
"Arata has provided far too little data about his experiments to be sure about what is happening there, but if we discount fraud, which is extraordinarily unlikely, he is demonstrating continued, reasonably stable LENR, at low temperature; the power output, though, can't be determined from the data,
"We don't need Arata. Kitamura et al. (Kobe U. and Toyota) and others have replicated, and many more will in the near future. They are using far better instruments, as you see from their slides which I uploaded you-know-where.
"- Jed Rothwell" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.224.69.121 (talk) 17:46, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Interesting comments by someone knowledgeable about the field. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 02:37, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
I want to bring this back to the point here: just because cold fusion supporters may have something to crow about doesn't mean a cold fusion water heater is just around the corner. Rothwell is bullish on the possibility, and that is, in a sense, his job. But skepticism is also quite in order, and that's my point. Indeed, heat-after-death experiments, meltdowns, stuff like that, have been reported. So, indeed, the trick is precisely to "learn how to control it." We may think that human ingenuity can conquer every obstacle. Maybe. When? Investors dropped out of cold fusion research, not because they thought there was no science there, but because it began to become apparent that return on investment might take far too long, too much money, or never come. There are still commercial projects hanging in there, and I wish them well, but it has to be noticed how many times there were enthusiastic announcements of coming products that never appeared, and conspiracy theories, etc., only go so far. My point is that we -- and everyone involved -- should be wary of gushy text about solving our energy problems. Indeed, it could happen. Indeed, we should look at it. But overblown expectations are what killed cold fusion in the first place, as a legitimate field of endeavor (using the sociological language without implying that it was ever actually not legitimate in an absolute sense). We will have plenty to do here to reconsider the article in the late of the latest developments, including the activity of March and now and what will follow. In reality, as Rothwell knows, people following the field closely knew this all, and the problem was political.
I removed a brief cynical comment from Jed, not specifically uncivil to anyone, but quite possibly able to be interpreted that way, and I ask him to consider himself, as it were, a professional, a consultant. I can't officially invite him to "speak" here, but his input was always valuable, when separated from what could be seen as unprofessional commentary about censorship, etc. If Jed objects to the removal, I'll replace it, but then I will be hands-off as to what ensues. --Abd (talk) 20:27, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
(Comment by Rothwell, to which I reply below, removed by Noren.)
I don't know of anything to contradict the above account. "Investors." The State of Utah. EPRI. The Japanese government. IMRA. Indeed, the U.S. DOE (at the very beginning). When it became clear that reproducing the effect (if it even existed) was not simple, and that scaling it could then be doubly difficult, put all the pieces together, they pulled out. Some agencies continued with very low levels of funding, right? The point is that commercial energy generation from the Fleischmann-Pons effect is difficult. That could change, but as far as we know, it hasn't changed yet. The presentation Rothwell mentions was presented at the March 2009 ACS meeting, a copy is at http://www.lenr-canr.org/PDetail5.htm#1620. Note that the Arata work, which was confirmed as reported in this "conference paper" has been published in reliable source (Japanese peer-reviewed publications), or am I confused about that? --Abd (talk) 22:10, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
(Comment by Rothwell, to which I reply below, removed by Noren.)
My suggestion, Jed, is that you refrain entirely from commenting on Wikipedia itself and what editors might or might not do. It makes the natives restless, for no good reason. Now, on the point, the CBS article represents a turning point. Duncan was solicited as someone who had never been involved. I'm pretty sure the genie can't be stuffed back into the bottle now. The real turning point may have been the four-day ACS seminar and their press release and press conference, and all the coverage of that. It's fun to witness this point in history, and to have been given a leg up on it by a few months from coming across the situation here. I'd say we are going to have a much more interesting article, and fairly soon. Watch this space! --Abd (talk) 22:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Misinterpretations

I have answered this as well on the talkpage of the spam blacklist (here accented and without wikilinks):

  • You say: "The actual argument made in refusing the first delisting request was that using the site could result in WP:UNDUE violation"
  • I reply to THAT: "The actual argument was more that the site was used in WP:UNDUE violation."
  • You to that "Please read the actual arguments made in blacklisting; further, please review the history of the blacklisting administrator as presented in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3...."

This is again a case of twisting the story, or reading it in the way you want to read it, or ignoring parts you do not want to read. Similar to a situation above, and I have noted your answer there, stating "You should understand that if I focus on only part of what you have said, it may not say much about the rest of your comment, but probably it means this: I agreed with the rest, or didn't understand it, or didn't care, and it did not seem important to disagree or to question you about it."

Please, NEVER again make that type of assumptions, stop with it. You are twisting others peoples answers to fit yours, even if you do it in good faith. See this as a second warning! --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:31, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Beetstra, the original blacklisting arguments are a matter of record. We must assume that this is why the site was blacklisted. Because of your protest here, however, I will review your rejection of the first delisting request. However, what's the substance here? The substance is a claim that delisting a site, it seems you are arguing, is likely to result in undue weight, because the site hosts more text in one direction than in the other. I understand the argument: if there is more reliable source available in one direction than in the other, the article may shift in that direction.

However, Beetstra, that is precisely how we determine due weight: by the preponderance of reliable sources. I've run into the problem many times that I know a particular position is what is well-known among experts, but reliable source is scanty, whereas reliable source in the other direction is more available. And I have to sit with that.

However, you have also argued that links aren't necessary for article content. Lenr-canr.org hosts a bibliography that is as complete as Rothwell has been able to make it, and the bibliography isn't slanted, it reports everything relevant, within reason. (It doesn't cite every news article, for example, just ones that were historically significant.) More later, gotta go. --Abd (talk) 14:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

That is not a reason for blacklisting! We accept that reliable sources have POVs. Blacklisting is not to be used as a method of enforcing content decisions or of steering an article towards or away from any POV. It's only to control linkspamming, as a last resort. Even arbcom doesn't rule on content. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:06, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Coppertwig. Beetstra, I'm afraid I don't see the significant difference or "twist" between "using the site could result in WP:UNDUE violation," my informal summary, and your the site was used in WP:UNDUE violation, or are you indicating that we had agreed? Then, in the next comment quoted from me, referring to the "actual arguments made in blacklisting," this would refer to the original blacklisting. Your action was not blacklisting, it was a decline of a delisting request, so this, quite simply, did not refer to you. Please clarify what it is that you are "giving me a second warning" regarding? I truly do not get it. What did I "twist" or misrepresent? If this explanation clears it up, please let me know, because, otherwise, a very serious allegation will stand and will need to be addressed. If not, then, please be specific, so that I can avoid what would, indeed, be a serious offense, and, after a "second warning" especially, I could be blocked over it. --Abd (talk) 15:56, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Sorry for my tendency to take things very literally and see distinctions others don't see, (which got me into trouble with that "misquotation" stuff), but to me, "using the site could result in WP:UNDUE violation" and "the site was used in WP:UNDUE violation" are two very different things. The first is talking about a hypothetical future situation; the second is talking about an (alleged) actual past situation. (Both, however, are arguments about using blacklisting to enforce content decisions, which is not its purpose.) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 16:12, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Also: in the explanation above: Beetstra had apparently originally been talking about the delisting discussion, and you said to please see the arguments in the blacklisting discussion: not the discussion Beetstra had apparently been referring to. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 16:15, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
No, we don't agree. We don't blacklist because a site can be used for WP:UNDUE violation. That is a wrong assumption and that has been explained above. We might blacklist if it HAS BEEN ABUSED for WP:UNDUE violations. If a site has been abused then 'oh but it is fine' is not an argument, the argument could be, 'we can stop the abuse, and we really need the site'. There is a difference there. In an above thread I gave you two examples where you choose to interpret words (and admit to that!), where the resulting statements that you write from them are not what I said and sometimes even totally opposite to what I mean. I can't speak for others, but if I read your answers to remarks of others, then I get a lot of times the feeling that the meaning and interpretations are different (I'll leave it to other editors to . Here again was such a case. You CAN NOT ignore parts you dislike, not understand or that you deem not important. That is NOT for you to decide, only to argue about.
Re Coppertwig I: Abuse is a reason for blacklisting, as I said here earlier, a porn site that does not get abused does not get blacklisted, a highly trusted site which gets blatalantly spammed gets (and one, not related to this discussion, recently got!) blacklisted. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:18, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
(ec) Re Coppertwig II: Indeed, thanks. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:18, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I think I see it now. Beetstra, yes, there was a disconnect here. You are correct, I apologize, though I'm still puzzled at the importance of it. We are in agreement on most of this, and the confusion here was between abstract principles (what is normal action), specific history (what was actually done with the specific blacklisting), the original blacklisting and the delisting denial reasons, etc. Very complicated and therefore quite easy to become confused. There was certainly no intention to misrepresent you, and I don't see the oversight on my part as being particularly unusual, it would normally simply result in an explicit clarification, if anything at all. The ultimate issue is the present request for delisting, what arguments apply to that, and whether or not the original blacklisting was proper or not, you did refuse to delist before, which is a close, you are the go-to administrator therefore; any you have recused, so, unless you decide to reverse your prior decision, and, since you have recused, you have utterly no obligation to do so, nor even to defend it, I don't see what you are continuing to discuss here, on this particular matter, at least not clearly. It might help if you are very, very clear about that on the blacklist page, if you think further discussion is warranted. Right now, the sense there is for delisting. Do you object to that? Remember, I only raised the history for context, not to try to blacken anyone's reputation. I do believe that you should have delisted NET immediately once the issue of involvement was raised, and then, if anyone wanted to, they could have proposed blacklisting, with normal evidence, a neutral close, etc., and that you did not do this still puzzles me. Perhaps, if you care to, someday you will explain this. --Abd (talk) 17:05, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
To continue on the substance, what has happened is that, due to the involvement and common trust enjoyed by a certain administrator, who acted in violation of admin recusal policy -- which is generally acknowledged, and disagreement is only over whether or not this should be excused or ignored because of age of the violations -- the two most significant sources of information on Cold fusion have been blacklisted. This creates a clear warping of our process in the other direction from the one you appear to fear, and violates the ArbComm ruling on Fringe science, so it's possible that this should go to RfAr/AE. I'd prefer, as you know, to resolve this far short of that, but AE is summary process that skips prior resolution efforts, given that ArbComm has already considered a matter; I'm coming to think that such a direct appeal may be appropriate, but I'd prefer to await the outcome of the delisting request, I'd rather see the dispute between us, such as it is, become moot, perhaps saved for a rainy day when it again matters. I'm not even sure what the dispute is, at this point, because it seems to me that you are mostly in agreement on the substance, and this latest disagreement, the occasion of your warning today, has been on the level of "he said, she said," and I'd hope that we can quickly move beyond that, since I anticipate being able to cooperate extensively in the future, as we have to some degree in the past. --Abd (talk) 16:54, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

(the first section of your last answer ("(ec)....blocked over it.") is a duplicate of the above section, isn't it?) comment by Beetstra made small, it was a duplicate, and I've removed it. --Abd (talk) 17:34, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Your second answer is not on subject, I am sorry. We are talking here in this section not about a certain administrator, or whitelisting, blacklisting or de-blacklisting discussions (these things happen when we discuss about the whitelisting, blacklisting or de-blacklisting, indeed ..), we are talking about the point that I strongly feel that you turn to other remarks (as you did here again), or interpret my words in a different way or way out of context. That is what we are talking about here. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:02, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll reply here. I accept the apologies, but I urge you again to be very careful with interpreting other peoples words. Abd, Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and there is no need to turn it into that. If I look at the evidence, then I see that the site was abused, significant enough for blacklisting (I see several editors who add the majority of the links, and these editors have quite a preference for this site). That it was blacklisted for another reason, and whether or not that reason was correct does not mean that we have to de-blacklist and re-blacklist with proper reason (per WP:NOTSTATUTE: "A procedural error made in posting anything, such as an idea or nomination, is not grounds for invalidating that post."). Delisting on that procedural error is hence for me not a question.

If you read a sense for de-listing, then you read that practically all people who vote for de-listing do argue along the 'the site was blacklisted for the wrong reason', no .. that is not a reason for de-blacklisting (WP:NOTSTATUTE]]. Moreover, these are also mainly editors who share your apparent grudge against JzG.

I am, again, not going to speak for or against blacklisting. I will wait for a broad community consensus based on proper arguments, and hope that an uninvolved admin will make the decision. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:22, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

(ec again!) so further response will follow, might even be this evening. Possibly, I had a router go down in the middle of all this, which may have caused some confusion. I'll refactor. As I've stated above, I made an error in interpretation, I think. (Unlike what you seem to think, I do consider comments like yours, I do not ignore them, I look again, and it has happened that I've looked again and agreed and then later realized I'd forgotten something.... in this case I looked again once and was puzzled, as I noted. I look again a second time and agreed with you. I don't think that the error of interpretation I made was significant, though, in the end, there was no intention to denigrate or to claim that your reason for not delisting was reprehensible or anything like that, so I remain a bit puzzled by the fuss; but at this point I think that I did misrepresent your position, minor or otherwise -- if it's important to you it's not truly minor -- and so my response, put together, was in error, and, given some time from responding to all the stuff coming down, I intend to fix it.

The error here was actually a fairly complex one, because each statement of mine appeared individually defensible, but the combination together, as I see it at the moment without review, was misleading. I'm not sure I've seen an example quite like this previously. I do know that you have commonly claimed that I've misrepresented your comments, or wasn't listening, and I actually explained why. It seems to me that you assume that my response, which may be to a specific statement, is necessarily to all of what you wrote, when, in fact, I either missed part of it or agree with it and have moved on to areas of disagreement without mentioning the agreement, or there was some misunderstanding, etc. But this is complicated, Beetstra, and is the kind of disagreement that doesn't usually happen face-to-face, because there are so many other cues as to what is going on. I have no doubt about your good faith, nor, indeed, of the general good faith of blacklist administrators, including, by the way, JzG; in his case I merely have come to doubt his specific competence to understand recusal issues, a problem which he could readily fix. --Abd (talk) 17:28, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Page of Shibdas Ghosh, Linked to SUCI

I now see a new IP editing the wiki page of Shibdas Ghosh. He is removing a citated evidence stating that it is not a reliable source. It is a journal published from India of which the editors are reputed people. Please look into it.--Radhakrishnansk (talk) 09:10, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Hai Abd, so what do you suggest me to do with the redlink that this probably puppet has placed in the article? There is already a page on Shibdas Ghosh and there is enough links there to the articles that he published. And you can see that an Admin has delisted an alligation on me as a sock puppet which was filed by one of the puppets of User: Kuntan. So, is it a relevant point enough for me to revert his redlink edit? --Radhakrishnansk (talk) 14:32, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

This is the investigation that I am talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Suciindia/Archive--Radhakrishnansk (talk) 14:38, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Do not treat an editor as a sockpuppet unless there is a neutral decision that the editor is such. It can get you blocked. Even raising the suspicion can get you blocked, unless you do it on the relevant noticeboard, i.e., WP:SSP. --Abd (talk) 14:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:BAN#Editing_on_behalf_of_banned_users

Please don't. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 21:41, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course I'll stop. Thanks for the note, SheffieldSteel. The editor is not banned. Please cite ban discussion. --Abd (talk) 22:12, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Now, please explain what, exactly, I should stop doing. I've done three things:
  1. I responded to a civil comment by an allegedly banned editor.
  2. I removed an unnecessary comment by the editor which, though it did not attack any specific editor, could be construed as being uncivil and, because the editor is a notable expert, and his deep knowledge of the topic is particularly valuable in eliciting sources for discussion and the article, I wish to constrain his participation at the same time as I encourage it.
  3. I reverted the removal of a further response from the IP editor, thanking the removing editor, and taking responsibility for the material as being useful for the project.
None of these actions are "editing on behalf of a banned user." This is what the referenced guideline says:
Editing on behalf of banned users
Wikipedians are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned user, an activity sometimes called "proxying," unless they are able to confirm that the changes are verifiable and have independent reasons for making them. Edits which involve proxying that have not been confirmed to that effect may be reverted. Wikipedia's sock puppetry policy defines "meatpuppetry" as the recruitment of new editors to Wikipedia for the purpose of influencing a survey, performing reverts, or otherwise attempting to give the appearance of consensus. It strongly discourages this form of editing, and new users who engage in the same behavior as a banned or blocked user in the same context, and who appear to be editing Wikipedia solely for that purpose, are subject to the remedies applied to the user whose behavior they are joining.
I was not editing under his direction, nor did I post anything on his behalf. Because this is not the article, verifiability is of less significance, but we were discussing matters which can, in theory, be verified, and that, indeed, is the purpose of the discussion, ultimately, to find what can be verified and used in the article. It might be noted that I put up the section, and Rothwell spontaneously commented, I did not solicit this, nor did I expect it, but I was pleased to see it. My hope would be to bring back his occasional participation on Talk pages here, because he has wide knowledge of the field, in all aspects, especially the history. His opinions are his opinions and are not necessarily reliable, but would always be of interest as starting points for discussion and discovery of sources.
I await your clarification, SheffieldSteel. --Abd (talk) 22:33, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Because responding to editors who are banned isn't prohibited, clearly, I'm going to assume absent specific comment that this is acceptable. Thanks. --Abd (talk) 22:41, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
With this revert you re-introduced material added by an IP self-identifying as Jed Rothwell - an editor who is either a banned or de facto banned, depending on how much wikilawyering you want to do. I understand that you want to contribute to a discussion, establish verifiability for your desired text, and so on, but contributing to a discussion means voicing your opinions, not being a mouthpiece for other editors - particularly one whose presence is disruptive according to the community. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 01:02, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
I was under the impression that "desired text" was determined through discussion, not imposed pre-made as "opinions." If you read the discussion in question, I am not "being a mouthpiece" for another editor, I am, instead, determining that the contribution by an allegedly banned editor is of value in discussion. The discussion itself, there, is not disruptive; there is a major news development regarding the topic of the article, and the banned editor is a known expert in the field, who is adding comment from his extensive knowledge. The ban was improperly declared by an administrator who was involved. I will, accordingly, reflect on how to respond and will consult with others. --Abd (talk) 03:19, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
So there will be no question of ambiguity, Jed Rothwell has been indefinitely blocked from editing Wikipedia for "disruptive behavior and advocacy via various IP's." --Noren (talk) 01:08, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes. That action came out of JzG's premature request at RfAr/Clarification. The ban was declared by JzG, enforced originally by IP blocks by JzG, in spite of his involvement with Cold fusion. Since I am now seeing extended damage from the actions of JzG while involved, and since MastCell was explicitly blocking an abandoned account as indicated by JzG, and in the absence of any "disruption" other than the ban declared by JzG, I intend to request that MastCell lift that block, and proceed accordingly. Thanks. --Abd (talk) 03:24, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
And now Coppertwig has quoted him[21], I reverted him[22], and you have reverted again "you can revert Rothwell, not Coppertwig"[23].
Coppertwig should be well aware that he is restoring the talk page comments of a banned user (and, just in case he isn't aware, I'm gonna leave a few links at his page), and that the user was specifically banned from that talk page due to his comments there. And of course I can revert you, when you keep arguing above that the ban doesn't exist, and when I have told you several times to go appeal the ban at the appropiate place instead of trying to act as if the ban doesn't exist because you don't agree with it. Really, I have nothing to argument here, you know that the ban exists and you are trying to ignore it instead of appealing it. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:11, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Enric, you have a right to provide notice here. However, beyond that, you are not welcome on this page. You also have a right to revert an editor who is, on the face, under a ban, no matter how abusive that ban might be. However, you do not have a right, therefore, to revert me or Coppertwig. If we consider that a communication from a "banned editor" is useful, whether it was posted here or on FringeWiki or Wikipedia Review or wherever, we can put it up, and we are responsible for actual disruptive content, if there is such. It's the same with articles. If an banned editor makes an edit to an article, the post is ban violation, unless the banned editor self-reverts, a special case I checked out with ScienceApologist and with another situation. Rothwell isn't likely to self-revert, so that part is moot here. However, that an editor is banned does not make the content itself illicit, and, once reverted, should any other editor be willing to take responsibility for the article content, that editor may revert it back in, this is well-established, and if you don't know that, you should consider the matter. Content trumps behavior, under WP:IAR. Who originated the content is, in the end, moot. Bans affect procedure, not content.
You should also be aware that by enforcing the ban, after notice and beyond reason, you are reinforcing an action by an administrator which was taken while deeply involved. As you know, those actions are on a track headed toward ArbComm, and related actions, such as yours and mine, will surely be examined. One of the issues here is a long-term bias against the participation of a notable expert in the field. You or others have elsewhere argued that Rothwell is not an expert, because he is not a "scientist" by training. Not all experts are scientists. He's a writer who has reviewed all of the related literature, it's possible that he knows it better than anyone else on the planet. Yes, he has a POV. Most experts, in fact, do. He's also caustic, and, I might say, had I faced here what he faced here, I might be caustic too.
In general, the Wikipedia community must become more welcoming to experts; this does not mean tolerating incivility; rather it means calling upon experts to act "professionally," whether they be true professionals or not. It means that if they have a COI, they confine their posts to advice on Talk. If you review the block comment on the action considered most lately to underly the ban, you will see that the POV of the editor was an issue. That was honest; but it also shows the total impropriety of the ban. Rothwell was originally banned because of his POV, and his arguments and information supporting that POV, on Talk pages only, precisely as required by COI policy. This is why the issue is important, and why I'm standing up for it, and why I'm confident ArbComm will confirm this position, even though it can sometimes look like there are a majority of editors thinking differently, because of participation bias. That majority disappears when sufficient attention is raised, as you will be seeing, and should already have seen if you had been paying attention. Now go away, don't bother me, unless you care to retract. See you at Cold fusion talk, where your critical perspective is, of course, always welcome. Within limits.
But before I close this book, I want to thank you for making the original lenr-canr.org page whitelisting request, and for aiding in the process there. You are aware, I presume, that there are many "convenience copies" of important papers cited at Cold fusion, and that readers would want to be able to read them easily. I know how to find them, you know how to find them, why do we refrain from making it easy for our readers? You gave the right answer with respect to that first whitelisting, and spent your valuable time working for it. There is much more work to do along the same line; soon it may be easier because whitelisting requests for each link won't be necessary. Your continued participation will be most welcome. --Abd (talk) 12:10, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
For reference, I am compiling an edit history for User:JedRothwell, together with blocks, at User:Abd/JedRothwell. I have not appealed blocks and bans of the editor for the same reason that most supporting the ban don't bother with blocks. Functionally, it is moot, this is an IP editor on floating IP (two different IPs; my presumption is home and office). However, when ban enforcement goes to the extent that legitimate editorial process is impeded, the matter becomes relevant, hence I'm preparing. It's possible that this will be included in the coming RfAr over JzG's failure to recuse, because it is fallout from that failure and for the support given JzG from other editors, almost to the level of WP:MEAT violation; by itself, that would be quite premature for ArbComm consideration, but events seem to be conspiring to widen the RfAr, even though that remains, to me, undesirable. --Abd (talk) 12:20, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Please provide evidence for your claim above that the blocking administrator (User:MastCell) was "deeply involved".--Noren (talk) 14:22, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
No such claim made. Ban was declared by JzG, not MastCell. MastCell took the ban and applied it to User:JedRothwell per discussion at RfAr that did not constitute a community decision to ban. That action has not been appealed, and, given the flap over this, such an appeal may be necessary. MastCell is not known to be directly involved, but stated, [ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&oldid=268329651#Statement_by_MastCellat the RfAr], If the concern is that Guy, an involved editor, made the blocks, then I propose that he contact me the next time one of this editor's IP's pops up. To argue that blocks are inappropriate because the editor's abandoned account has never been indef-blocked seems - again, I can't think of a charitable term, but I have rectified that concern ex post facto. This was an administrative action taken, not based on a discussion where opposing points of view were considered and a decision made by a neutral administrator, but rather by one administrator backing up another without such review, and possibly offering to take action without due consideration; the objections to the block were made elsewhere, and JzG had jumped the process up to RfAr without following WP:DR, where he frequently is reversed if faced with perseverance, as with Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG2 and the ensuing ArbComm ruling. MastCell was confirming a block, with his action, of an editor who had been the object of much JzG incivility and admin action while involved, such editors can be expected to have become uncivil, and are likely to remain so unless the community addresses the admin abuse. In any case, if I wish to challenge the block, I would do so at Talk for MastCell, and I'm currently researching the matter to determine if this is appropriate. Because the matter may be resolved by a more specific RfAr that is clearly coming, I have some doubt about the usefulness of a specific challenge until the deeper issue of admin recusal is addressed, otherwise I'd have done it already. --Abd (talk) 15:29, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
As cited immediately above, Jed Rothwell has been indefinitely banned by Mastcell. Whatever the issues you may have with JzG's actions in the past are not relevant to this particular issue, as the current ban of Jed Rothwell was not applied by JzG.--Noren (talk) 17:49, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
I disagree. Apparently an abandoned account was blocked; but I see nothing in the WP:Banning policy#Decision to ban giving individual administrators the authority to indefinitely ban users. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 19:58, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
"A ban is an indef block that no other admin is willing to overturn" - I think that's the authority you're looking for. With a very few exceptions, WP-pages are descriptive rather than prescriptive, i.e. they are updated to reflect actual practice. I'm not sure why you can't locate the description of that longstanding practice. Maybe you should consider updating the policy page. Franamax (talk) 01:36, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Franamax, we have no quarrel with policy, so we don't need to try to change it. The editor is not even blocked at this point. There is a claim that the editor was banned. An account that hadn't been used since 2006 was blocked and "banned." That account may not even be accessible to the editor, and the editor doesn't receive notices at it, indeed, the Talk page has been deleted (I have a request in for undeletion at this point). What we have is an IP editor who was declared banned by JzG, who was long insulted and baited by JzG and others, and when JzG was challenged, on his Talk page, over the declared ban, he went directly to RfAr with an astonishing request that ArbComm declare that Jed Rothwell was banned under Arbitration Enforcement because of similarity of POV, and with a claim but no evidence at all of WP:MEAT violation (and I know the parties, WP:MEAT is preposterous, Jed is nobody's puppet), and it was pointed out that the editor wasn't blocked, i.e., no account was notified, it was an article Talk page declaration, the latest block was for block evasion when the block had not been evaded, it had expired, MastCell saw that as wikilawyering, apparently, and blocked the old account, which would, itself, be wikilawyering; I'm not an administrator and I can't read the notices, if there were any. And because this wasn't appealed, the editor is therefore banned? Nonsense. There isn't any block to appeal at this point that would be worth appealing, and the editor doesn't want to be unblocked or unbanned, he couldn't care less. He's had it with Wikipedia, and I don't blame him; he was abused and insulted for years by an administrator known for astonishing levels of incivility, his site blacklisted directly by that administrator, then at meta on phony claims and arguments, he was blocked and banned by the involved administrator, and the community didn't do anything about it. (Except for me, and the kind of work I do takes time, and then others have noticed and supported the effort.) How would you feel? Would you be civil?
There is no ban logged at Wikipedia:List of banned users. Someone could fix that, presumably, and we would consider whether or not it was worth challenging. Possibly: bans are declared as the result of a discussion, with a neutral closing administrator; that did not take place. Someone wants to start a discussion, fine, but don't claim that we have been disruptive. The issue of administrative recusal is more urgent.
What actually happened here was that edit warring started over acceptance of IP edits in response to a discussion I started, signed as Rothwell. The edits were not disruptive, except in the sense that some editors are so obsessed with the alleged Rothwell ban that they will edit war over discussion, removing not only Rothwell edits but responses or references to it from myself or Coppertwig; the latest reference, though, stands. Nobody challenged the right of an editor to interpret a ban as existing and therefore to remove the posts from the editor on sight. But what has been challenged here is the established right of other editors, not banned, to consider such edits useful and bring them back in on their own responsibility, as specifically allowed by policy, whether or not the editor was banned. Frankly, this would be at AN/I already if there weren't already a train headed for ArbComm over the issues. Now, folks, if you have some "legal business" here, please declare it. Enough senseless debate on my Talk page, debate that is clearly not intended to seek consensus but only to disagree. --Abd (talk) 03:46, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
(undent for spacing only) OK Abd, did I strike the wrong tone with a particular wording? or perhaps you feel embattled at the moment. I suppose my "legal business" is to state that I regret having posted a response to CT on what is really quite common practice in my experience: if you get blocked and no-one will unblock you, you're banned. I do also regret that I'm not willing to take the time to dig up the numerous editlinks I know exist which support that position, nor the one where I myself pointed out the difference between de facto and community banning. I was not being sarcastic in suggesting an edit of the policy page. I was actually suggesting codification of the distinction - but I see where you might perceive it as arguing from a higher authority (assuming that's what you were doing).
All that said, yes, trains tend to run on one single track. I spotted that one leaving the station a while ago and have been hoping it will not result in the ultimate wreck. I would just strongly urge you to consider what goal you ultimztely wish to achieve in terms of people and policy. My experience in life is that pursuing agendas based on the particular people involved very rarely works out. I recognize that you feel you've identified a procedural issue worthy of pursuit - but it's bound up with a person, so my advice is to beware or maybe just drop it and look for a better avenue elsewhere.
And with that, I depart with thanks for your tolerance. I shall not trouble you again without either your invitation or some compelling need. Regards! Franamax (talk) 04:43, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Franamax, for the explanation. There are possible clarifications that could be made to the policy page, indeed, but that's not a task for me, right now. Clarifying actual practice is more urgent, and, because there seem to be some deep divisions, it's going to require ArbComm action, rather obviously. The issue for me is not whether a user is "blocked" or "banned" or is subject to any other label. In any case, go in peace. The person you mention, if I get your drift, is not the issue here, in fact, he's just someone who decided to sit on the tracks and isn't responding to the train whistle, the horn, the bystanders warning him, the rumble and the flashing lights, because he has some friends telling him not to worry. --Abd (talk) 04:55, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Since you said "go in peace" I'll venture one more comment. Take a look at the ground around you. Do you notice some narrow shiny metal objects stretching out into the distance, one on either side of you? Do you hear any weird hooting-type sounds obeying the Doppler effect but still increasing in pitch and increasing in volume? It's your view as to whether you're the moose or the train. They both take a kilometer to stop after the collision. Both get damaged as a result, one far more than the other - or the moose could walk away or the train could switch to a siding. Either way, I'd suggest you are not carrying sufficient momentum to be the one ending up still standing on the track. Now I'll assume I've exhausted your patience. :) Franamax (talk) 05:49, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Okay, Franamax, thanks, this is what you get when you take my salaam at face value, and, no, you cannot exhaust my patience if you approach me in this way. I'm not the moose and I'm not the train. I'm not even the track, though it's tempting to identify with it. I'm the ground, I carry the burden of it all, and I'm the sky, which watches; through one of the greater mysteries, I sometimes seem to comment and even move a few things. But momentum? No, it comes not from me. --Abd (talk) 13:06, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
(Elmer Fudd stalking his prey) "Wabbit twacks!" (follows tracks for a while then sees them change into something else) "Twain twacks!" (Train comes from nowhere and runs him over) *Dan T.* (talk) 13:23, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
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