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Hi

Hi Abd! I hadn't seen this post of yours until a minute ago: About Enforcement of Sanctions against PHG, and I don't think many have either, unfortunately. Thank you so much for the quality of your comments!... and maybe you could find a better place to post them? Best regards PHG (talk) 16:49, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, the substance of what I wrote is incorporated in some of the Proposed decisions; I think that it was either in line with what some arbitrators already thought, or they read it and accepted it. Regrettably, my time is limited and I must devote it where I think it likely to be of the most use, and your situation is difficult. If you had taken up the practice of not doing anything that might create "disruption" without first consulting with your mentor, you'd be off your sanction at the end of the year, though without the "barnstar" that some arbitrators now seem inclined to award you. At this point, you may have to be content with the fact that, right now, the vote on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/PHG/Proposed decision#PHG is a valued contributor is 5:1 in favor. It takes 8 to pass, out of 15 arbitrators at present.

To establish a prior ArbComm error would take extraordinarily preparation and ground work. I am currently reviewing a situation which looks like an even more clear example of error, but I wouldn't dream of raising it until I have not only evidence of "being right," but also of succeeding; otherwise it simply would create disruption -- an arbitration is almost inherently disruptive -- without value. The positive finding that Cool Hand Luke proposed is pretty unusual; it's the kind of thing I've been encouraging and I'm not surprised to see Cool Hand Luke leading with this.

Look at the results, at what you got, not what you did not get. Given how extraordinarily foolish filing that request might have been, i.e., it might have worked out very badly, you are doing quite well. I don't like the "sources in English" requirement, but, look at it this way: get the cooperation of another editor, and you can use anything you like. Just don't do it yourself. (And don't use a meat puppet, but someone who will independently review. It may be a bit tedious, but if you do it, your contributions will be next to bulletproof.) I.e., don't let the fact that a reliable source you need is in French or Japanese keep you from doing good writing. You might put a fact in with a citation needed tag, right away, then assist another editor with finding the citation. (Ask your mentor about this, though. Ask about anything that pushes the edges of your ban. Don't do such pushing on your own.) --Abd (talk) 20:50, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

One method (again, probably should check with your mentor as Abd advises) might be to put such material on the talk page of the article, with a request that it be added to the article. I can read French, so possibly I could help with French-language sources; I don't mind being asked. (though I might not always have time.) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Right. Some topic bans, quite a few, in fact, require a total abstention from direct participation in an article, including Talk pages. A ban that allows Talk is actually a bit unusual and pretty clearly, from the beginning, recognized the value of your contributions. You have a coterie of editors, a relic of incivility in your past, I'd suggest, who might be unfriendly, but in any situation where you can't find someone to assist, you wouldn't be successful doing it yourself, ultimately, anyway. Again, let me know if you run into a specific problem, but I think that the future looks fairly bright. Just don't bring up the past! Some people tend to get defensive! And some people get offensive when they think their old judgments and opinions are being attacked. Human nature. Don't leave home without it. --Abd (talk) 01:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Topic Ban

I'm sorry, Abd, but I just want a clear and unambiguous statement regarding whether the ban exists. Without that he will continue to be harassed on false grounds. I agree that it would be useful if he could learn to be more diplomatic. He can certainly make his points and still be civil in doing so. In the long run this would clearly be his best course of action if he truly cares about this topic and wants to see his changes included to some level. But as long as they claim a false ban it gives them carte blanche just to revert on sight.

Perhaps my past experience colors my view a bit which is why I bother. I'll drop it at this point unless and until it becomes a more serious issue. --GoRight (talk) 15:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure. I understand. However, the politics are such that Rothwell is a sitting duck for an actual ban. He doesn't care if he's blocked. I'd think he should care if lenr-canr.org is blacklisted, but signs are that he doesn't. (It can seriously affect his page-rank statistics, there are rumors, though I'm not sure). Because of what I see as his arrogant incivility, I wouldn't care at all about this; but the problem is that his web site is extremely useful, it really is a "library," the best in existence on the topic as far as I can see, and he really is an expert, even if an opinionated one. Experts are often opinionated, and that we don't know how to deal with this is one reason why Wikipedia has reputation as being hard on experts. If we could deal with it better, we'd probably have better balance and scope. Instead, Rothwell was quite correct in his latest comment: we have a seriously defective article, misclassified information on the topic, and tilt away from what is available in reliable sources, toward some diffuse old judgment of the field, all with the classic "pseudoscience" arguments applied in a field which most certainly isn't, as a field, pseudoscience, though there is a lot of pseudoscience asserted to be related.

Now, Rothwell isn't banned, I know what it's like to follow a banned user, both as a friend of one and as the target of one, and they are treated very differently. It's difficult to block someone entirely, but once WP has gone to the trouble to define a true ban, enforcement becomes much more reliable, with identification by people who care and prompt action by admins. He's a tendentious arguer, and he can be reverted on sight. Anyone can, actually, as long as there is some reasonable basis. But nobody is edit warring to keep his comments out. I've reverted them back in, on occasion, and they stuck. What I've objected to is the claims that he's banned, as if that should determine the matter. Not. But I'm not exercised if someone thinks he's banned. They are simply wrong, and if I picked up my lance and tilted with every windmill I thought was turning in the wrong direction, well, I'd be a tad busy. My suggestion to you was that you become familiar with what's going on. Intervention isn't needed, at least not yet.--Abd (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

While I have not commented extensively I have begun reading some of the materials and the talk page history. I just haven't digested enough of the material to contribute on the content discussion at this time. I'll get there, though. --GoRight (talk) 16:32, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Abd, I'm very sorry to butt in, but I noticed this on my watch list. You said: we have a seriously defective article, misclassified information on the topic, and tilt away from what is available in reliable sources, toward some diffuse old judgment of the field. I'd appreciate it if you could come up with specific suggestions and problems in the cold fusion article, as I'd like it to be balanced. There is a serious amount of drama going on and virtually no improvement. Please advise here, on my page or the article talk page if you're so inclined. Phil153 (talk) 16:47, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm working on it, Phil. But I'm dealing first with some process problems, out-of-process blacklisting without consensus, a ban and blocks by an involved administrator, etc. I'm also doing a lot of reading on the topic, most assiduously searching for recent criticism. It's quite hard to find. There is recent reliable source on a turning back to the field. But, as you know, it's difficult to edit the article, reverts are the norm. We'll get there, I predict. On the other hand, if I put half my life savings into palladium, would that make me COI? Or suppose I'm planning to buy such; I'd want the price to drop so I could buy it more cheaply, don't you think? I'm trying to figure out which way I should bias the article in order to maximize my profits. Too hard! Tell you what: let's have an accurate, NPOV, balanced, reliably-sourced and, as much as possible, easily-verifiable article, period. How will we know it's NPOV and balanced? Well, there will be less edit warring, use of bald reverts, and less contentious debate, for starters. The best sign of NPOV is true consensus, the cynics are wrong, it's possible (That is, when we have, in the project, complete coverage of what's in reliable sources, and balance in each article, only a very few editors would still struggle against it.) Here is what I'd ask of you: start thinking about where we can put what we have from reliable sources, including notable opinion. The Cold fusion article is actually a bad place, the ongoing research into Condensed matter nuclear science or Low-energy nuclear reactions isn't about "cold fusion." Search for it under that name, you won't find most of it. --Abd (talk) 04:42, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Pseudoscience, Fringe science, or Questionable science

Which category would you consider Cold Fusion to fall under? I would put it under the latter (assuming one has to make such a categorization), and I think their treatment under Wikipedia policy is slightly different? Thoughts?

Also note Alternative theoretical formulations --GoRight (talk) 17:44, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

What's Cold fusion? What category is Luminiferous Aether under? "Obsolete scientific theories."

There is "fringe science" that is called "cold fusion." There is "pseudoscience" that is called "cold fusion." And there is real science, by recognized scientists, some of them major experts in related fields, but they don't call it "cold fusion." They call the field Condensed matter nuclear science, article redirected to "cold fusion" by the pseudoscience editors, it has also been called (by the DOE in 2004), "Low Energy Nuclear Reactions." It's also been called "Chemically assisted nuclear reactions." Is that possible? Nobody really knows for sure. Classical theory would say that it's highly unlikely. However, LENR, and, indeed, "cold fusion" -- which most specifically refers to a claim of D-D fusion -- is known to occur, it's not fringe science at all, the form that is generally accepted is Muon-catalyzed fusion. So the question is whether there are other forms of catalysis or "assistance" or not. My odd guess on general principles is that there could be, just because the universe is vast and possibilities are vast, but it is entirely a different matter to, then, conclude that it exists merely because it's a reasonably hypothesis that explains some experimental results. The DOE properly encouraged further research, while certainly holding back from recommending a specific federal program. I don't know what they would conclude today, there has been some remarkable and much more difficult to dismiss research, and, as yet, inadequate review and secondary analysis of it. But there is some. Unfortunately, skeptics aren't publishing, for the most part. So when we try to cite the current work, it's claimed to be undue weight, based on assumptions about what was true in 2004 or earlier. My opinion is that the current work can be cited, if it is framed properly so as to not create undue weight. It really needs to be in a separate article, I'm coming to conclude. The current work isn't about Cold fusion. But the pseudoscience crowd insists that it is. Without reliable source, I suspect. CMNS undoubtedly includes, in the field, cold fusion work. But there is hardly any such work now. Instead, there is simply work to determine if there is radiation or other products of nuclear reactions, plus excess heat, not explained by chemical reactions or energy input. The so-called Fleischmann effect (mostly excess heat) turned out to be very difficult to reproduce, but it was reproduced, there is plenty of RS on that; what's missing is recent overviews of the field that would balance this work with skepticism, and certainly much skepticism remains as well. How much? How would we know? JzG has his memories of conversations (when?) with an electrochemist, which seem to be the basis for his strong opinions. I'd say we should follow policy and guidelines, but there are details that are not at all clear. ArbComm is currently working on this, but I don't think the current case is going to be enough. The community is divided. --Abd (talk) 18:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. The work that is published is in sources that they claim are not RS since they are not the mainstream sources. The reason is obvious, the mainstream is skeptical so they refuse to publish. This leaves the community actually doing work to publish in more specialized sources. But there has to be a distinction of sorts between legitimate science that is not considered mainstream and true pseudoscience. The work you are attempting to cover here seems to fall into that category. But unless and until we can get some sources to be acknowledged as being RS the issue is moot. Do you not agree?

The arbcom ruling on pseudoscience attempts to make this distinction and seeks to leave open the possibility of covering such topics as long as it is clear that these are not mainstream views. In other words, unaccepted (by the mainstream) but never the less rigorous scientific topics are still coverable. --GoRight (talk) 18:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The debates usually revolve around what is "reliable source." The anti-fringe crowd typically argues that RS for scientific topics is different from RS for, say, social or political topics. To my mind, though, knowledge is knowledge. Look, my training was in science; I sat with Linus Pauling in Chemistry and Richard P. Feynman in Physics. Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia, it's not a "science" encyclopedia. The topic of "Cold fusion" is actually many topics: there is science and what is known or believed generally by experts, there is history and politics and the rest. New Energy Times isn't a science journal, it's a special interest journal, with what appears to be relatively professional reporting on matters of interest with regard to alternative energy. I wouldn't take an article in NET as if it were a publication in a peer-reviewed journal. It contains items that are clearly "discussion," or "debate," like the letters to the editor in any newspaper. It reports news and it reports on publications of interest. I'm not pushing it as a reliable source, at this point, but it's debatable, it's not ridiculous. However, "reliable for what?" Reliability of a source depends on the use to which the source is put. A paper by Fleischmann, published in conference proceedings, is reliable as "the opinion or report of Fleischmann." "According to Martin Fleischmann, ...." Then the question becomes whether this opinion or statement is notable, and there is also a question of balance.

The anti-fringe activists here have acted to redirect or delete subarticles that would allow full expression of what is in reliable sources, then they suppress the information in Cold fusion based on WP:UNDUE. The result is that reliably sourced information is being excluded from Wikipedia; it's being denied its proper place. At the same time, a published critic of Cold fusion like Kirk shanahan complains that Wikipedia suffers from a lack of reliable source on the "anti" position. Now, he's right; there is a lack of such sources. Yet I can say also that it's obvious to me that the field is still a "pariah" field, but what is quite unclear is the extent of this. I'd say that, probably, a majority of "scientists" think cold fusion is rejected. One of the points I've been making is that they are correct. "Cold fusion" was a mistake. But "Low energy nuclear reactions"? Again, a majority of scientists -- general scientists -- would probably say that this is impossible. And they would quite clearly be wrong. Muon-catalyzed fusion is accepted. Are there other forms of catalyzed fusion, due possibly to not-understood quantum mechanical effects? It's very easy for there to be a general opinion that such are unlikely, but an opinion that it is impossible strikes me as unscientific. That's not "science," i.e., rigorous, tested knowledge, but inference and opinion and assumption, the very opposite of science. An expert who is also a true scientist would be far more cautious.

However, if we were to confine ourselves in determining the scientific consensus to experts knowledgeable about the more recent research, the balance would be the other way. If it were just interlopers, relatively ignorant researchers asserting that there is evidence for low energy nuclear reactions, we could dismiss it. But it isn't. And there are huge political forces at work that cannot simply be ignored. The DOE calls for research and publication, and there is research, and there is publication, but little review. There is review and secondary source, but the anti-fringe editors move to exclude it because of alleged imbalance. It's a problem, for sure. I don't have a magic solution; all I can say is that we should follow WP:RS, WP:UNDUE, WP:NOTABILITY, and guidelines for subpages, which are the classic way to avoid undue weight where there is a clear mainstream position but notable minority views. The exclusion of material from the project based on alleged undue weight is a very serious problem, WP:UNDUE is not a project-wide policy, it applies to each article. If an article is on, say, the Green Party (United States), it doesn't have to devote more space to the Democratic Party and the Republican Party because they are more widely supported! But an article on Political parties in the United States that devoted excess space to minor parties would be out of balance. (Note that the Political parties article actually devotes about equal space to each party. Is that a violation of WP:UNDUE. I don't think so! As a list of the most prominent parties, with a specific article on each party, it really is just a kind of summary or index to the parties.) --Abd (talk) 03:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

One more point. It is asserted somewhere (maybe a proposed decision in the fringe science arbitration) that readers expect to see, in an encyclopedia, the mainstream view. Actually, as a reader, I can say that this isn't the whole story. Yes, I expect to see the mainstream view, but in a complete encyclopedia, the "sum of all human knowledge," I also expect to see full coverage of notable controversy and notable divergent opinion. In an article on Cold fusion, I'd expect to see External Links to the most notable sites for further research, and most specifically, it's outrageous that lenr-canr.org, with the best and most complete bibliography known, and permitted copies of many of the papers otherwise not easily available, isn't linked there. It's not actually an advocacy site, I'd expect to see a link to the most prominent advocacy sites as well. I'd expect to find description, if available in reliable source, of the scams and true pseudoscience claims that have cropped up. I'm not just interested in the mainstream view. Absolutely, that should be prominent and not concealed, and what is a minority view should be identified as such, and what is truly fringe (which, in my opinion, is more rejected by knowledgeable experts, such as the experts on the 2004 DOE review panel, than low-energy nuclear reactions), likewise identified. If we have reliable source on totally crackpot ideas, it should be covered in the project. That decision was made long ago: we determine what is notable by the presence of reliable source that allows verification of what the text says. Attribution is used to make the text true even if what the text actually says is false. "According to ...." And we then are careful to include contrary sources, if they exist. This is where the problem of lack of critical publication gets serious. But we can deal with it, if the playing field isn't tilted, and, unfortunately, it's been tilted, partly by blacklisting, by topic banning one of the best informed editors, who was actually extraordinarily careful not to go beyond WP:RS, by refusing Talk page participation by a published author in the field (Rothwell), and so forth. It's a mess. --Abd (talk) 04:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Arguing with JzG

Lots of luck arguing with JzG... it seems to be kind of like pissing into the wind, in that the nasty stuff always seems to end up getting all over you rather than your target. Guy is quite skilled at making whoever's arguing with him seem like the unreasonable parties in the debate, and he's got a fairly powerful clique of others who have his back, enabling him to carry on being the Judge Dredd of Wikipedia, acting as prosecutor, judge, jury, executioner, undertaker, and obituary writer for everybody he decides, on his own recognizance, to be a spammer, POV-pusher, or holder of nonconformist opinion. *Dan T.* (talk) 01:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

(later comment than below.) Dan, I'm not pissing at JzG, so, so far, no blowback of non-existent piss. I'm following dispute resolution by the book. I think JzG has made some mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. The question is what they do next. Progress has been slow but steady. His blacklisting seems successful, for the moment, but it's entirely shaky and could bring down the whole blacklisting system, since it now appears crystal clear that it's being used to control content instead of merely linkspam. All his "skilled arguments," which were politically skilled, perhaps, simply demonstrate the situation. The comment you made about the wearing of many hats has been raised by others, including at least one ex-admin who is very highly regarded. I'd say that the web is coming unravelled, one little piece at a time. If JzG stands on his actions as an involved administrator, he stands to lose his bit. Obviously, it would be silly for me to threaten that, since I have utterly no power, I'm just a little boy saying that the emperor has no clothes. If everyone laughs, will the boy get a spanking? I'd really like to see JzG wake up, and I'm hoping that he has friends, people whom he will listen to, who will give him good advice. But it's also quite possible that he has simply burned out. Admins tend to do that, especially those who do battle with the legions of pov-pushers, vandals, spammers, etc.; they start to see them underneath every edit and get frustrated. I assume JzG's good faith, and more than that, I actually trust it. However, he seems a tad ... resistant to re-examining his ideas.

Little successes: The AfD for Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments, a JzG nomination with irrelevant comment about Pcarbonn's alleged motive in creating the article, has been re-opened. We'll see what happens; it had been closed after one day, with no notification of editors who might be concerned, as Delete, clearly out-of-process, and the admin, as I'd normally expect, re-opened it on my request. Notice, Dan: No WP:Deletion review request. Always start with the simplest action: a request of the acting administrator. I've been successful with that the majority of times. You might also note that I haven't done this with the delisting requests; but I will, before proceeding to the next step, which would be to involve another admin. Don't imagine that I'd undertake this without administrative support. There is currently a whitelist request for two pages from lenr-canr.org. It will be accepted or denied (or effectively pocket-vetoed, which I'd treat the same as a denial, except that then there is no specific admin to request reversal from). If it's denied, given the evidence presented for whitelisting, this will also show that the system is broken. And it would show that the local system is broken; and dealing with the local system is, at least for me, much easier than dealing with meta. I do not think that the use of the blacklist to control content, as distinct from linkspamming, will be supported by the community; I know that there are concerned administrators. I'm still assuming that the request, being reasonable on the face, supported by reputable editors, will be honored. MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist#lenr-canr.org Please, no incivility, it riles up those who might otherwise support a position.

And the talk page for Condensed matter nuclear science has been restored, after having been deleted by JzG. I expect to be able to remove the redirection. We have the tail wagging the dog. CMNS is a general field, "cold fusion" really belongs to history, it's a detail, a rejected hypothesis; the CF article still treats current work as if "cold fusion" arguments apply. (For example, discussing the SPAWAR work, it notes that the radiation levels detected -- if it is radiation -- are below what would be expected from deuterium-deuterium fusion. That's actually irrelevant, since the SPAWAR group isn't claiming D-D fusion. They aren't claiming any mechanism at all! So we have an historical debacle framing current research and tagging it with the name of that old issue.

JzG blocked Rothwell IP, two days ago. It looks like he previously blocked non-Rothwell IP, claiming it was Rothwell. The apparent evidence? The only similarity, really, was sympathetic and informed interest in cold fusion. So I asked him to unblock. Will he? Since he hasn't got a legitimate basis for a block (in the presence of objections), he should. Now, it's an IP block, and these are normally not appealed because it's silly, the user can just reboot. But he did it before, blocking Rothwell IP on December 18. What I just discovered is that it seems Rothwell substantially honored the block! He disappeared for a month. However, on any individual point, I could be wrong. Perhaps the other IP he blocked was Rothwell, though it seems unlikely to me. However, the initial block was totally improper, a block of IP by an involved administrator. JzG has denied that he is involved, but it's blatantly obvious from a review of the history of Cold fusion. He's been asserting a consistent content position for a long time, and his admin actions support the position.

If all this were to get to ArbComm -- don't look for any attempt from me in the near future! -- ArbComm would essentially have to see an apology, yank the bit, or toss the principle of administrators using tools when involved, other than in reasonable anticipation of consensus. What would you predict? I know fairly well how some arbitrators would rule, not others. I'd hoped that JzG would simply stop, but he's been unable to, apparently. So far. --Abd (talk) 15:44, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the warning, Dtobias. However, I'm not arguing with JzG. I requested that he unblock Rothwell's IP; I'm obligated to do this, and civilly, before proceeding with the next steps of dispute resolution. He's made, in this whole affair, which began for me, by the way, with some comments including yours, on User talk:Jehochman, a series of actions that represent use of admin tools by a blatantly involved administrator. That is a major blunder, I'd say. He could lose his bit over it, if it goes before ArbComm. I'm hoping that one of his friends will nudge him a little, I have no desire to do the serious work required to develop an RfC or RfAr, and I'm sure we all have better things to do, I'm sure there would be disruption; but, in my opinion, there is ongoing disruption taking place caused by these actions. I'm pretty much done, I suspect, with the part about asking him to reverse inappropriate actions. I'll be trying to identify someone who might talk some sense into him, any suggestions will be appreciated. This should be someone he trusts. If there is a solid cabal, and only internal trust to it, then ... it could get ugly. But I'm proceeding with a steady assumption that all I have to do is show the right evidence or argument and, of course, the right thing will be done.

And that is just step two: involve another editor. I already know several admins who are aware of the situation and consider that there is a problem. I haven't raised this specific issue with any arbitrators yet, but I've discussed similar situations, and have a fairly solid expectation of how it will be seen. --Abd (talk) 04:22, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

You forgot to mention BADSITES. Hope this helps. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

SBHB, I don't see the connection; that would be WP:BADSITES, I presume. JzG is very involved with the blacklist, but that's not the same as BADSITES. --Abd (talk) 04:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

RE: Your deletion of Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments

I have reopened the debate and restored the article. Regards, — Aitias // discussion 13:35, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Interesting secondary sources

I have been googling for secondary sources. I have found a lot but most are in sources that will be argued with, not that they are bad sources, but I did find a couple in sources they will have trouble claiming are not WP:RS. I'll keep looking for more.

• Cold fusion is back at the American Chemical Society
• Tabletop Accelerator Breaks 'Cold Fusion' Jinx But Won't Yield Energy, Physicists Say
• Technology: Warm fusion
• US review rekindles cold fusion debate

The second one is interesting because it has a slightly different twist on "cold fusion". --GoRight (talk) 22:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

More traditional news sources:

• Coming in out of the cold: Cold fusion, for real

--GoRight (talk) 22:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, the Technology: Warm fusion is about Pyroelectric fusion. The Tabletop Accelerator article is about the same. That is actually hot fusion, no really new physics there. Just a novel way of doing hot fusion on a very small scale. However, the "Cold fusion is back" article is, I think, currently referenced from Cold fusion. There is a story on the conference at [1]. Complete with photo from Krivit.

The Nature article (Cold fusion is back) seems to have a copy at [2].

The Christian Science monitor is, again, about Pyroelectric fusion. The author seems to have drastically misunderstood the difference between hot and cold. Pretty bad, eh? At CalTech, we had a term for someone who wasn't particularly bright, "warm body." It was defined as someone who could tell the difference between light and dark. At least that's how I remember it! That was, after all, well over forty years ago. So this isn't about cold fusion at all; rather, the device creates very high energy deuterons to smash into a deuterium-containing target. The "device" isn't hot, overall, just a very tiny part of it. You can hold a flashlight, after all, but that filament is pretty hot! She wrote: "Instead of using intense heat or pressure to get nuclei close enough together to fuse, this new experiment used a very powerful electric field to slam atoms together." Perhaps a basic physics course would help: heat is motion. Fusion has always been producible in particle accelerators with sufficient energy. (Read, "powerful electric field," though it isn't entirely that simple.) This device is a tiny particle accelerator. A tiny number of fusions take place.

No, what is going on in the palladium electrolysis experiments isn't necessarily fusion, or, if it is a kind of fusion, it isn't deuterium-deuterium fusion as was originally hypothesized. There are some fairly complex theories about what it might be, if, indeed, anything is happening beyond some odd kind of experimental error. Shanahan postulates a kind of systematic error, though it seems unlikely to me that it would be so commonly duplicated. But the real issue isn't calorimetry, and Shanahan's entire work is on that. It's radiation and nuclear reaction products. Is the SPAWAR group detecting radiation? It sure looks like they are! There is some confirmation. Really, this is far more solid than the 1989 announcement. I think we will know within a few years. Meanwhile, what can we have on Wikipedia? I'm just taking this one small step at a time. I find it intolerable that what would ordinarily be sufficiently reliable source is being rejected because it supposedly creates a bias. The real kicker has been what Pcarbonn pretty much got canned for: he wrote about the exclusion of the 2004 DOE report details. Basically, there is a set of editor that wanted the barest statement of conclusion in the article: i.e., "same as 1989." There are other details that "make cold fusion look better." They are there. It's not our job to include or exclude based on what makes a POV "look better." That, in fact, is POV-pushing, no matter which direction it pushes in. How we frame text, what article it goes in, those are all matters that are more difficult, that involve subtleties of implication, etc. But we shouldn't be excluding. Rather, we should be balancing.

And, you might notice, Shanahan and others are opining that Wikipedia can't do a good job covering Cold Fusion, because the "critical" work isn't being done. If there are just reports on the work being done and published in peer-reviewed journals, it makes cold fusion look good. Can't have that, can we? However, in fact, an editor like PCarbonn was quite willing to allow the maintained presence of that old 1989 massive rejection. There is a book by a major publisher on the history. Seems to be some effort to keep material from the book out because the author is supposedly biased.

Could it possibly be that anyone who actually investigates the topic, who doesn't have blind faith in the scientific status quo, comes away thinking it might be real? What I see here is a circular approach. If a source favors LENR in some way, the source must be biased, because LENR is just another name for cold fusion and we all know that's fringe. So we can't use the source, we can only use a neutral source. But there aren't any neutral sources that aren't old! The 2004 DOE panel seems to have been fairly neutral. (The 1989 panel probably wasn't.) And what's really interesting about it is that there was *substantial* opinion that something worth investigating is going on. That wouldn't be true with any fringe science topic. That was 2004. The most dramatic results from SPAWAR came after that.

http://newenergytimes.com/Library2/2008/2008SPAWAR-Resp-KowalskiSPAWAR-Repl.pdf . is one of the latest papers, defending the SPAWAR claim that the effects seen on their CR-39 detectors is indeed radiation. Now, why do I have to use a nowiki tag to keep the link from triggering the spam detector? NET has been blacklisted. The normal reasons for blacklisting weren't present, there wasn't linkspam. There were, indeed, editors who added references to NET, and other editors who thought they shouldn't be used. Editorial conflict. Resolved by an involved administrator who blacklisted the site. --Abd (talk) 23:40, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Well I guess this raises the thorny question of what the definition of "cold fusion" actually is. You are arguing that Pyroelectric fusion is "hot" fusion because it relies on high energy particles as the means of effecting the fusion. OK, I guess that is one way to make the distinction. It also agrees with the updated name for "cold fusion", namely low energy nuclear reactions. But the fact remains that you have to do something to get two positively charged particles close enough together to allow the strong nuclear forces to glue them together, right? And that is going to take energy, right? So this definition of "cold" seems not very useful. And if this is the definition being applied I can understand why the topic is met with so much skepticism.

I always took "cold fusion" to mean any type of fusion that occurs as low enough temperatures so as to be practical (i.e. you don't have to contain some million plus degree apparatus to sustain the reaction). By this definition Pyroelectric fusion clearly fits the bill since it operates at a temperature range of between -30C and 45C.

[interjected response by Abd] Actually, no. The operating "temperature" is in the millions of degrees, probably. "Temperature" is a measure of how much kinetic energy is held in matter. Basically, the device generates an extremely high temperature for a very small amount of deuterium. I.e., it gets some deuterium ions moving really, really fast and they slam into a deuterium-containing target. High energy. Hot. All these are synonyms (sort of). LENR is a nuclear reaction taking place at a low temperature. "Low" could be thousands of degrees K., in theory, but for most experiments, it's basically room temperature. There are no extremely high voltages (as there are in the piezo device). The SPAWAR cells run at about 6 volts. Pyroelectric fusion isn't useful for generating energy, i.e., power or heat, because it really is the same as hot fusion; try to scale it up.... no container could contain it; hot fusion reactors contain a plasma magnetically.

Let me say it again. Pyroelectric fusion uses a "million plus degree apparatus." Definitely interesting. Consider a tokamak for hot fusion, or whatever they are using nowadays to try to do it. What's the temperature of the tokamak? Is it millions of degrees? No. Might get sorta hot, but I certainly doubt that it's anything like "millions of degrees," on the outside. The temperature of the confined gas gets up there, not the "apparatus." In the pyroelectric device, the only thing that gets that hot is a tiny amount, maybe as little as a few thousand atoms, of ionized deuterium, if I've got it right. No, you want an accepted example of cold fusion, it's muon-catalyzed fusion. Or, of course, our topic. If it works. --Abd (talk) 02:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Believe it or not, I actually DO understand what you are saying. I also understand the physics involved in using a strong electric field to accelerate ions. So I guess we are arguing semantics a bit. I don't disagree with the basic notion that a really fast moving ion = a high energy ion = a "hot" ion. That much is obvious. I just question the utility of that definition of "hot" in this context. Hence my question below. --GoRight (talk) 02:29, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

So do you know of anything that clearly identifies the parameters that determine what "cold fusion" would be? --GoRight (talk) 01:52, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Don't know the exact definition; it's not a scientific term. It means "not hot," basically, "not millions of degrees." --Abd (talk) 02:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Another recent paper: http://www.newenergytimes.com/Library2/2008/2008BossTripleTracks.pdf . This paper is arguing that high-energy neutrons are being detected.

How about this for a fringe publication:

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Chemistry/NuclearChemistry/?view=usa&ci=9780841269668

oup is Oxford University Press. Of course, one of the editors is Steven B. Krivit, the editor of New Energy Times. He's described as "the lead journalist investigating the LENR field for the last eight years." Based on reading NET and talking with him, I think that's probably correct. --Abd (talk) 00:03, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

What's your read so far?

Looking through the arbiter comments, it seems to me that they pretty much add up to:

1. Rothwell is being bad and is getting what he deserves.
2. Existing policies are keeping him at bay so why should they step in this POS.
3. They are NOT currently endorsing a formal topic ban.

While this latter part confirms my point (since there is no need to formally endorse something that already exists), it is just going to leave Rothwell's critics claiming the ban exists when it doesn't.

Also, I was looking through your evidence page. It is quite clear how involved he was and for such a long time. Then he engaged in an edit war with three other editors over the redirect and then enforced his POV with a protect. I think that pretty much speaks for itself.

I also note the User:MastCell has indefinitely blocked Rothwell's old account. An interesting turn of events. Thoughts? --GoRight (talk) 06:47, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Arggh. I should be able to say what I think on my own Talk page, but I got blocked for doing it before....

It's largely moot. Rothwell is being defiant, sure, but he's not the worst problem. He only edits Talk pages, which is precisely where one may civilly "push" a POV. Some ArbComm members seem to have totally missed that. JzG, however, is an admin and uses his tools to support his POV, plus he is at least as uncivil as Rothwell, just not as impolitically so. He only insults powerless editors, or others he thinks vulnerable, whereas Rothwell insults everyone. (I.e., Wikipedia tolerates JzG, therefore the whole project is responsible for what JzG and similar editors do. Sins of omission. We tend to forget about that. Not my responsibility. He did it. Don't blame me!) Rothwell is treating us as if we are communally responsible. That, in fact, is the old religious law. Am I responsible for the atrocities committed by American forces, say? Yes, I am, if I have the power to prevent it and do not exercise that power. The tricky thing is where a group has the power, but not individuals, and the group fails to act. The classic answer: God does hold us responsible for what our society does. Rothwell makes us uncomfortable; he's often right in what he puts on that Talk page. But he says it in a confrontive and rather arrogant way. Look, I know the type, I went to CalTech. Half the student body was that way. Rothwell could be invaluable if we'd treat him properly, which would be with a welcome and firm limits. Ask his advice! But don't be controlled by it. He knows the sources and what's available probably better than anyone else in the world, except maybe Krivit of New Energy Times. Krivit is a journalist, and he's talked to most of the major players (advocates and critics).

As to the block of Rothwell's old account, it doesn't change much, except to add another possibly involved party to what comes next. It looks like ArbComm is punting, which was the obvious response. JzG will take it as approval and license, and will probably create more evidence, unless he finally realizes that I've been giving him good advice.... And I now have a better sense of the response of the community. More should be visible tomorrow. I didn't create that evidence page on my own initiative, I was asked. Don't imagine that I'd be this confrontive without some serious support. I wasn't taking that support as license, I merely see it as a signal that I'm not out on a limb, that there are serious issues here, I was still proceeding, more or less, as if that support did not exist. One step at a time. JzG isn't the big fish. You know who the big fish is, the One Whom We Dare Not Name. I'm beginning to think that it may be time to get this up to ArbComm if lesser measures fail. But I'll consult with my ArbComm contacts before getting even close, I didn't consult them here, I'd rather leave them truly uninvolved at this point. But before raising a request, I'd certainly ask for advice, privately. --Abd (talk) 07:12, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

The way I read the fringe science arbitration, the way the voting is going, the anti-fringe crowd is losing. Basically, an editor like Pcarbonn didn't try to give fringe views excess prominence, he just didn't want to see them suppressed and denied expression in articles where reasonable sources exist, and the committee majority seems to be expressing this, minority views are neither to be given undue prominence, nor be unduly suppressed. --Abd (talk) 07:24, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

reverting banned editors

Please notice that, per WP:BAN#Enforcement_by_reverting_edits, *anyone* can revert a banned editor. Also, not only you got his comment back, but you went and replied to him. I have reverted his comment and left a placeholder only because you had replied.

You knew perfectly that he is banned and that his comment was going to be removed, so don't restore his comment with the argument of "don't remove comments with replies". -Enric Naval (talk) 08:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've been down this road with truly and clearly banned editors. Yes, such editors may be reverted on sight, so your removal was within guidelines. However, on article pages, the content can be replaced by any editor willing to take responsibility for it, i.e., for the edit as if it were the editor's own. As to Talk, the edit may then be reverted by any editor who believes it worth discussing. That's what I did. It was not a challenge of your right to remove, it was an assertion of my right to replace and comment on it. It seems you are denying that right. How would you suggest we resolve this dispute? Any ideas? You know that I don't edit war, that I wouldn't have reverted your reassertion even if you had said nothing here. I'll look at the edit you made and see if there is something I can do within my own restrictions on edit warring. Other than that, your turn.

Except that I'll state my position here, again, and succinctly: Yes, any editor may revert any edit of a banned editor (an exception is given below). However, any other editor may restore the edit and is then responsible for its appropriateness in situ.

The exception, which got me my first warning from an arbitrator: if a banned editor removes material which appears to violate WP:BLP, reverting it can be considered BLP violation. My view was that an automatic revert was easily undoable (more or less your position), that the status quo was the presence of the alleged violation, and if we could truly enforce bans, the violation would still be there, so automatic revert on site was just a more sophisticated form of ban. Had I insisted on this with further edits, I'd have been blocked. The banned editor, highly experienced, was trolling for my reverts, trying to get me in trouble. In fact, what I replaced was verifiable in reliable source. For porn stars, what may be BLP violation for someone else may be a badge of honor. But appearance counts on Wikipedia. --Abd (talk) 13:46, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Think of what stuff you are taking responsability of. Do you really want to take full responsability for a comment finishing like "(...) you are unsavory. Your techniques are straight out of the Creationist's playbook and you should all be wearing tin foil hats"[3] ? Are you ready to justify how keeping this comment helps writing this encyclopedia? Do you realize that someone (maybe even myself) is sooner or later going to accuse you of meatpuppetry and ask that you are blocked until you promise to stop enabling banned users? (it would be very different if his edits actually improved wikipedia, like User:Peter Damian did, who had multiple users including myself taking responsability for several of his edits)

In summary: you seem to be willing to take responsability for disruptive useless messages which got its author banned, guess what will happen if you go and take responsability for the same behaviour that got him banned in the first place :P --Enric Naval (talk) 16:58, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that would be the argument, wouldn't it? However, I don't think the messages are useless. And striking them just irritates readers. If I look for incivility, I find more serious incivility being tolerated in this matter. I looked at that one edit and decided that, given what was going on, it was sufficiently relevant. My opinion. I think I was reverted. So? One editor, me, supposedly creates a mess that it takes another editor less than one minute to clean up. And now even more time is being wasted discussing that. Yes, Rothwell isn't civil. But, then again, neither are quite a few here who aren't even warned for that. Rothwell is vulnerable to being blocked. Have you seen me go to AN/I and argue that he shouldn't be banned? Not yet, and if I go, it won't be on the specific merits of the block, but on the propriety of a clearly involved administrator using his tools. Policy and guidelines are very clear. Is JzG obliged to observe them? This isn't some minor technical detail, and his behavior is damaging the project, seriously. I'm being told that the little tiny piece I've seen is repeated with "hundreds of users." I've seen a few signs of that, but I wasn't looking for it and his contributions are voluminous -- and most of them are clearly good. But the damage from a few bad decisions can be very serious. Among other things, the Cold fusion article has been seriously damaged, it wasn't just User:ScienceApologist, and it certainly wasn't just User:Pcarbonn.

As to your implied question, if I take responsibility for behavior that got him banned, I'd be warned and blocked if I continued. The question of a warning by an involved editor is a tricky one, I hope we don't need to resolve it! I believe I asked you to suggest a resolution for our dispute, and I didn't seen an answer to that. You merely repeated and expanded on part of what I'd said, as if it were some correction or disagreement. So let me suggest one: is there some user you trust whom I could approach on this matter? Preferably an experienced one or administrator. --Abd (talk) 17:29, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Abd, all trusted users that I know are uninterested on this sort of topic or have already given their opinion on the arbcam clarification, so I can't help you there. I can, however, tell you they would tell you to drop the topic already or to ask for wider community discussion at WP:AN (or maybe a RFC, why don't you consider transforming you /JzG subpage into a RFC when the clarification ends? The format looks ideal).

"Policy and guidelines are very clear (...) [JzG's] behavior is damaging the project" Hum, I'm not sure that everyone sees it that way, the arbitrators surely didn't seem much concerned with JzG's behaviour. I suggest you prepare your case very well, I'll read what you come up with. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:14, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Did you read the evidence page linked from my comment in the RfAr? Please understand that this wasn't a case against JzG, it was very narrowly focused on Cold fusion, his involvement there, and his related administrative actions (just some of them, there is no way to collect them all easily, I just picked off what was easy. For example, it would have been easy to miss his additions to the protected blacklist pages, they aren't listed as administrative actions, but only as edits; user contributions don't note that the page was protected. I have reasons to suspect that what I've seen with Cold fusion is repeated with many articles. I simply haven't looked. At this point, Enric, you should also understand that I wouldn't go further without explicit support. Going to AN/I is not the next step, unless there is an emergency. I'm considering that there is not; at some point I might change my mind, though. Rothwell being blocked isn't a big deal, Rothwell is an adult and he's not going to fall apart, and if he actually wants to contribute suggestions, he can still do it, I've explained how. For now, he's simply riling the natives, so to speak. And we don't need that. The evidence page was prepared at the request of a highly experienced and trusted editor, who may or may not decide to comment. If the case is moot, this editor isn't going to spend the editor's capital. The point of it wasn't to attack JzG, but simply to point out that there was a serious underlying issue, and ArbComm shouldn't jump to conclusions. Denying the case was perfectly fine, one of my possible desired outcomes. I didn't think it likely that they'd jump for the involved use of tools issue without prior attempts to resolve this normally; the worrisome outcome would have been a ban resolution without a careful consideration of the implications. --Abd (talk) 21:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Commentary by Fritzpoll

(Fritzpoll seeks image of referee blowing whistle) Abd and I don't agree on a lot of things, but since policy quotations are being tossed around here, here is my analysis as an administrator (if I might be so bold). It is indeed valid to revert a banned user's contributions (with certain sensible IAR exceptions relating to BLP violation removal), but it is just as reasonable to restore a talkpage comment if it brings up something that requires discussion and would be difficult or convoluted to refer to if the text that provoked the discussion were not there.
Abd has taken full responsibility for restoring an edit, which unambiguously does not violate our content or talkpage policies and which consequently is approved by WP:BAN#Enforcement_by_reverting_edits. Although this same policy suggests that Abd can be accused of meatpuppetry if he continually does so, WP:MEAT defines a meatpuppet in the sense of recruitment by a banned editor to insert dubious content, and there is no evidence of a pattern of such behaviour that would allow such an accusation to stick.

The only admin action here (with my admin hat off) could possibly be to remind Enric that an accusation (even implicit) of meatpuppetry should be used with care due to its derogatory nature, per the very policy he indirectly cites.
This is not a formal warning of any kind, simply a commentary to both of you not to allow a minor dispute descend into pointless diatribe. :) Best wishes, and apologies to you both for butting in. Fritzpoll (talk) 17:53, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

:-) Thanks for a so-much-needed break, I was getting quite agitated here. I don't like seeing how the talk page of an article slowly gets buried by off-topic discussions about when an admin should not issue a ban (what do wikipedia bans have to do with cold fusion?) --Enric Naval (talk) 19:14, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Ask a question, get an answer. Sometimes. There is an administrator using his tools in a biased way, and it impacts what editors can do at the articles. The biggest effect visible at the moment is the blacklisting of lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com. I know that arguments can be made that these sites can't be used for anything, but the fact is that editors here (including CF skeptics, apparently) did use them, and the usages were accepted. You have asked for a whitelisting of two of them. Just how well has the whitelist process worked, Enric? Have you read the blacklist guidelines. Sure, one can look at them or be familiar with them, and make a snap judgment that they applied to lenr-canr.org. That judgment is based on assumptions easily held but actually not true. It's even worse with newenergytimes.com, because there isn't even the excuse that was used for Rothwell (that his signature, even though it doesn't contain a link, but only the name of a domain, and one would have to construct the link in a browser, and it would be just as easy to enter Rothwell cold fusion and get the top hit immediately. This guy doesn't need Wikipedia advertising, so one of the major assumptions about linkspamming is gone. He's not anonymous, he is openly and easily identified. Objectionable links are generally in articles, and he doesn't edit articles. The editing he was actually doing, allegedly linkspam, isn't prevented by the blacklist, all the blacklisting does is to prevent editors, include legitimate editors, from making and implementing a judgment that a particular reference is appropriate.

In articles about, say, political subjects, links to advocacy sites are permitted, even though, obviously, they may be biased. Consider Green Party (United States). Look how many "biased" sites are linked! So in an article on Cold fusion, why aren't the web sites of notable advocates shown? I'm not talking about an indiscriminate list of every crazy who has opined on the topic, but what's actually notable. I would go further and consider New Energy Times, for example, a source of reportage on the topic, news. But all of this should depend, not on me alone, and not on JzG alone, but on editorial consensus. And with editorial consensus, the blacklisting would not have been needed at all! Unless there was true, serious linkspamming, and Rothwell's edits to Talk pages, problematic in some ways, didn't even approach the standards of linkspamming. Obviously, a blacklist is a dangerous tool, and the design of the tool was specified by consensus to severely restrict its use to necessity, and not as a control of content based on a judgment of "fringe." Fringe sites, as I've hinted, can be quite usable, typically with attribution. Without the ability to use the best of them (which would be lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com, maybe some others, I'm not sufficiently familiar), we are left with a poor article.

But also we now have topic bans. Justified or not, they do damage, if the editors banned are the most knowledgeable. Rothwell is very knowledgeable, and a bit arrogant about it, that's part of what upsets so many. He's uncivilly right, when he writes about the state of the research into low energy nuclear reactions. It's his specialty. How we treat him is actually reproduced all over the project, experts are ridiculed, insulted, and, not being familiar with Wikipedia process and customs, they are sitting ducks. Very often they end up banned, and then we wonder why Wikipedia has a terrible reputation with experts (including academics). We can do much, much better, and it doesn't mean that we have to qualify editors as experts. It simply means that we need to respect divergent opinion, take a claim of expertise at face value until controverted (and we should be very careful about that, it is easy for someone ignorant of a subject to assume that an expert is an idiot because the expert says something that contradicts the views of the ignorant one). Nobody has to accept an edit because the person making it is or claims to be an expert. In fact, experts are often COI, like Rothwell. Experts are best as advisors, respected but not in control. Pcarbonn was the experienced editor most familiar with both the topic of cold fusion and our policies and guidelines. Did he violate policies? Evidence of that was thin. Instead, he was framed, literally. His actions were placed in the frame of an agenda, not stated in the article he wrote, but inferred from it, as far as I've seen, and that agenda was used to see his actions on Wikipedia through the name of WP:BATTLE. But if we look at actual "battle," such as incivility and edit warring, I see as much or more from an opposing faction. But that faction is popular. It attracts support no matter what it does, no matter how outrageous. Now, if a case comes up and gets to ArbComm when it's ripe (not like the premature situation here with JzG's request), ArbComm is forced to face the issue. Are actions like the common actions of JzG allowed? And we know the answer to that: according to guidelines, according to policy, and according to general community consensus when the community has faced the situation, no, they are not allowed, and the support of the admin who acted that way mysteriously vanishes. Physchim62. Tango. Still wondering what hit them.

I'm not going to AN/I or AN until there is a clear situation, for raising these issues on that scale before the matter is clear and the ducks are in a row -- which includes step by step following of WP:DR -- simply causes disruption. Do we have a disagreement of importance? I don't know. You appear to have warned me against reverting edits of Rothwell back in. My position was that this is legitimate, if my judgment is that discussing them is appropriate. Nobody is obligated to add to that discussion, and if I'm reverted, I'm certainly not going to edit war over it. I don't edit war, period, and I'm on edge when I do a single revert that is repetitive, I'll do it if I think the other editor has misunderstood and is reasonably likely to accept it the second time. Sometimes. Sometimes I'll simply discuss even then.

I've reverted edits back in of a banned editor many times; it's been challenged, I've been dragged before AN/I over it, and only where it was a restoral of an apparent BLP violation did I get serious flack and, of course, I immediately stopped (even though the actual edits were okay, i.e., it just looked like a violation at first glance; but I wasn't willing to research the topic. Researching porn stars is hazardous for my mental health; but I looked at enough to be satisfied that what was in the article was clearly true and not at all controversial). The ban of an editor is not a ban of me; what is so egregious about the ban of Rothwell is the new argument JzG used to justify it before ArbComm: as an enforcement of the Pcarbonn topic ban, on principles that would seriously ban any expression of the POV that is supposedly Pcarbonn's. ArbComm wasn't about to go there; it was simply a few arbitrators who, on shallow consideration, saw this as an ordinary ban, what's the problem? They actually ignored JzG's argument and simply jumped to the conclusion. On the matter of fringe, I read the current arbitration on fringe science as more or less of a vindication for Pcarbonn's actual positions as I see in his edit history. Nuff said for now. --Abd (talk) 20:57, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Fritzpoll, I didn't see your comment before replying to Phil. You are always welcome here. You can't butt in, you are at home. I'll respond on the substance if it seems that it will help, short on time now. Perhaps I'll write to you with more about what just went down, it's quite interesting. --Abd (talk) 21:00, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

You may find this past ArbCom case to be of interest with regard to how JzG's past history is regarded. *Dan T.* (talk) 14:01, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Mmm. At first blush, looks to me like JzG is violating the warnings in that Arbitration. Thanks for pointing to this. We may be back at ArbComm sooner than I thought. Incivility, assumptions of bad faith, and "overly harsh" actions is what I've seen investigating this. --Abd (talk) 14:40, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi

Hi Angus I think I am leaving. Thank you for all your support. Cheers PHG (talk) 14:05, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Sad, but not unexpected. I was amazed that you put up with it as long as you did. As you know, I think you made mistakes, but against this was the truly tremendous and high-quality work that you did, compared to which your possible errors pale. I have made a suggestion on your talk as to how you might be able to resolve the issues that have led you to leave. Please consider it, and only suspend your contributions, at most, until these issues are resolved. Take your time, don't move too quickly. Let me know if I can help. Enjoy whatever wikibreak you take, whether short or the rest of your life. You deserve that enjoyment, you have given so much reading pleasure to so many. --Abd (talk) 16:51, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/PHG

The above-linked Arbitration case has been closed and the final decision published.

PHG's mentorship and sourcing arrangement is both revised and extended; the full list of new conditions are available by clicking this link. Furthermore, the original topic ban on editing articles related to medieval or ancient history has been rescinded. PHG is prohibited from editing articles relating to the Mongol Empire, the Crusades, intersections between Crusader states and the Mongol Empire, and Hellenistic India—all broadly defined. This topic ban will last for a period of one year. He is permitted to make suggestions on talk pages, provided that he interacts with other editors in a civil fashion.

Any particular article may be added or removed from PHG's editing restriction at the discretion of his mentor; publicly logged to prevent confusion of the restriction's coverage. The mentor is encouraged to be responsive to feedback from editors in making and reconsidering such actions. Furthermore, the Committee noted that PHG has complied with the Committee's restrictions over the past ten months, and that PHG is encouraged to continue contributing to Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects. PHG should be permitted and encouraged by other editors to write well-sourced suggestions on talkpages, to contribute free-content images to Wikimedia Commons, and to build trust with the community.

For the Arbitration Committee,
Daniel (talk) 22:32, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Per your request

I think that you might find the discussion here to be interesting. --GoRight (talk) 22:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Interesting? Not. Same old same old. Same faces. Same usage of bald reverts. Now, GoRight, what to do? Faced with the phalanx, you'll need to build consensus for small changes, and you may need to use RfCs to do it. You cannot change the balance of an article which has a set of editors sitting on it, all by yourself. By the way, I have mixed feelings about your edit that started this. I don't see it as a BLP issue, particularly, that's an error. (At least not the first edit). Basically a congressman said something to or about Hansen. Notable? Maybe. If that comment was picked up and repeated, not just an isolated mention in a possibly biased paper, I'd be more comfortable. In any case, learn to lose better. Stop arguing faster, save your effort for what's truly important. DGAF. With patience, some of your effort, kept simple, will stick. Other editors will decide what that is. Reach out to the reasonable side of all the editors. Some won't be reasonable, period, they have an agenda, but others will be.

TS has painted himself into a corner with You will not convince me, or I suspect anybody else, that Hansen said other than the actual words quoted by the journalist in the body of the piece. That is purely stubborn (even if he's right!). However, take it simply. Is anyone else convinced? You know, if nobody else can be convinced, we'd have to say that TS was right, isn't that true? Watch out for the sarcasm, it can bite you. Simply pointing out the quotation would have been quite enough.

What to do? Well, you came to me and asked. I'd say that Sidaway, irritating as it might be, is more or less correct. Yes, there are quotation marks. However, that can be an interpretation by a headline writer, it happens. The whole thing seems a tad silly to me, though. Use exact quotes from the article or from other articles. That's how I've gotten around obstruction. Take his object as sincere and having a basis, and move ahead with it. Don't get caught in the battle mentality. Now, reading the cited article, the article doesn't support the extremity of the headline. Shocked, I'm shocked! Seriously, headline writers try to grab readers, and they tend to make headlines as sensational as possible. Did Hansen say what was quoted in the headline? If so, why wasn't it quoted in the article? Yes, there might be a reason, but I'm inclined to the alternative that the headline was a paraphrase that sensationalized Hansen's speech. It's better to avoid it.

On the other hand, Sidaway was provocative: The onus is on you. And since Hansen didn't say what you put in quotes, I'd say you're in a bit of a sticky position.. The true situation here is that the Guardian put it in quotes, so there was a reasonable basis for your edit. That doesn't mean it should be kept, but that "bit of a sticky position" was based on an incorrect assumption: that you had misquoted Hansen. Instead, the Guardian may have. I don't know how Sidaway would know what Hansen did or did not say. That is, we have some quotes and we can assume that he said those things -- the headline aside -- but we certainly don't know everything he said unless, perhaps, a transcript of the interview has been published.

Yes. Same old same old, like I said. Sidaway was using a bald revert, and accused you of misquoting, when he could have done what Connolley did, supply an (arguably) more accurate quotation, and this was supported by Atmoz. Connolley seems to be taking a neutral tack, don't you think? If you can muster it, I'd suggest thanking him. (I've seen him do this before with Global warming, cut through an edit war with a reasonable edit.) At least that's how I see it. -Abd (talk) 23:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look. I guess I should have given you more of an overview first. As I say on the talk page, Tony is fixated on my original quoted text ... which as you have observed I have a legitimate basis for ... but I have already moved on from that part of the original edit. I accept the use of the more complete quote. And yes WMC is offering to compromise by adding it back, but they are being successful at whitewashing the (to me at least) equally important second part of my original edit. The lead of the article says "Jim Hansen is the 'grandfather of climate change' and one of the world's leading climatologists. In this rare interview in New York, he explains why President Obama's administration is the last chance to avoid flooded cities, species extinction and climate catastrophe."

They are arguing that I am putting words in Hansen's mouth when I (verbatim) use the "explains ..." part after the quote. Do I not have a valid secondary source which asserts that Hansen "explain[ed] why President Obama's administration is the last chance to avoid flooded cities, species extinction and climate catastrophe."? Isn't the whole point of using secondary sources to get independent characterizations of someone's views rather than relying on primary sources like quotes? That's how I read the policies.

I was mostly looking for an independent opinion which you have graciously rendered. Thanks. --GoRight (talk) 00:23, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

You can't put that summary in Hansen's mouth. However, you could attribute it to the author of the Guardian piece. "According to so-and-so in the Guardian," Hansen, in an interview, explained why ...."

Now, why does this matter so much? Wikipedia articles aren't ever going to be perfect. We can hope that balance is reasonable. As I've written about "whitewash," the term implies that something is black, or, in reality, that someone is claiming that something is black. "Whitewash" is a term of controversy, not of cooperation. A mild expression of something you might think is more serious may be the best you can get. The more you can find and agree upon exact quotes or consensus summaries, the better. I've had to use exact quote, sometimes, when it was claimed I was misinterpreting. I was happy to do so. They didn't like it! "Too much detail!" they screamed. --Abd (talk) 00:59, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Abd. You've described something I said as "provocative." Well be as it might, what I was trying to do was convey to GoRight that the Biographies of living persons policy applies in this case. The onus is indeed on us to ensure that what we write about a living person is accurate (even though sometimes our sources, ostensibly reliable, do silly things like this in sub-editing a strap line). --TS 21:48, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure, Tony. Of course you were trying to improve the article. The question isn't whether you were right or not, though, it is how you pursued that goal. I'll stand with that comment about "provocative," but, hey, I am not RfC'ing you. By now, watching what I've been doing in certain situations, you should know that I'd practically have to be dragged there. I filed the AN/I report as "suggested" in your removal of my discussion (my notice, not Gen ato's), but certainly didn't call for your head. I just think we should help each other out by pointing out where our editing habits tend to inflame rather than settle disputes. And I need that kind of help, too, by the way.

(Example of being dragged: User:Allemandtando was a sock of User:Fredrick day. It had been noticed on AN/I that Allemandtando was probably a "returning user," and I'd come to think he was likely Fredrick day, certainly blocked, probably banned. However, I did little about it except let him occasionally know that he was seen, so that perhaps he would stay within propriety. However, he insisted that I "put up or shut up," really making a big stink about it. So I filed Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Fredrick day (3rd) and, when he discovered that he couldn't bluff it away and, as demanded, RfCu was filed, he immediately bailed, he knew the jig was up; it is a pain in the seat to research and document a "case," but once I'm doing it, I do it, and it became totally obvious who he was, as well as how disruptive he'd been. Another example: as I'm sure you know, I've notified JzG that I think he's used his tools while involved. He's been intransigent, defends his actions, etc. He's made a few (mild) threatening noises, nothing serious. However, he went to ArbComm, way prematurely, over the questioning of the Rothwell ban by another editor, which I joined. He was asking for a very, very dangerous ArbComm expression of opinion, a transitive ban: one user is banned, reason not extremely clear, but apparently for POV-pushing. Therefore all editors claimed to be POV-pushing a similar POV are banned, and can be blocked as "arbitration enforcement." Not only did I consider it crucial that ArbComm not be sucked into confirming JzG's actions, but that he not be confirmed, or appear to be confirmed, on his arguments, which some editors -- and even an arbitrator or two -- seemed to be doing at first. (I.e., they were deciding that Rothwell should be banned, no problem; but that wasn't the question they were asked! Plus I was asked by a respected editor to compile evidence. Thus, JzG forced the creation of User:Abd/JzG. I was still at the point of trying to figure out the best next step to resolve our dispute over the use of his tools, without calling out the lynch mobs or the cheering section. I'm still there. Looks like JzG is not interested, and now that the stuff is exposed, from the RfAr, and from noises I'm hearing on and off-wiki from other editors, I may need to file an RfC, but I'm certainly open to suggestions. I could also go to AN over several questions, or the Village pump, there are certain issues that have come up that should have broad consensus; most notably, the matter of how the blacklist is being used to control, not linkspam, its mission, but content. In whitelist requests, I've found, the admins who control the whitelist seem to take it upon themselves to decide suitability of a particular link for a particular application; not merely that there is some reasonable basis from other than the webmaster or site owner, but that, in the end, a link should or should not be used. This is administrators taking control of content without any emergency; this is quite against the wiki model and precedent and just about everything that's been said about how administrators should function. It makes the blacklist and whitelist administrators into privileged editors, in a manner that really has nothing to do with linkspam. This is entirely aside from the blacklist questions involving JzG, it's general and his actions only brought up examples, they aren't the true problem. --Abd (talk) 23:29, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

A request for brevity

I'm probably not alone in this: I rarely have the willpower to read (as opposed to skimming) all the way through your posts. I believe that you'll achieve more of what you'd like to accomplish if you ruthlessly editted down before hitting save.

Happy to be told "get bent" if you'd like, I'm only thin-skinned when it suits me,
brenneman 12:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah, Brenneman, if I told everyone to "get bent" who told me they would appreciate brevity, I'd be blocked in a flash! Look, some people think what I write (just about all of it!) is fascinating, others hate it. Everybody would benefit from appropriately expressive brevity. Problem is, I already spend too much time writing, and brevity takes far, far longer. Was it Mark Twain who wrote, in a letter, "I apologize for the length of this, but I didn't have time to be brief." I reserve brevity for situations where I have an agenda, something to "push," to make sure that people read, or where discussion on a topic has been exhausted and all that is coming back is repetitive arguments that have been said before. Even then, I may simply let others have the last word. I don't have any obligation to change anyone's mind, I only have an obligation to express what I know or understand or sometimes simply think, when I think it relevant.

So I'd suggest this: if what I've written seems like a burden to read, don't read it! If it's important, somebody will pick up on what is important, you'll have another chance, and, in addition, you could always change your mind and go back. However, skimming is what I do when I see "too much." I only read carefully when something snags my attention. And it is also quite legitimate to ask for a "brief clarification," i.e., something like, "Skimming this, it seemed to me that you might be saying something important, but, for me, it's lost in details and fugues. Would you be willing to summarize this?" But only do this if skimming does indeed make you suspect importance. Otherwise, let it slide. Thanks for the suggestion. --Abd (talk) 15:04, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I must second Aaron's request. Wikipedia talk pages aren't really suited to extensive wibbling. It's better to state your opinion as clearly and briefly as possible rather than using the page as a scratchpad for your thoughts. Could I suggest that you write a draft and then go through it paragraph by paragraph, writing a single sentence summarising each one? You may often find that the summary is all that is needed to express your opinion--and it will be read and understood by far more people. It's not just you, though. There are several people who tend to bang on at length. --TS 15:43, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Your wish...

...is my command. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 12:49, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

As I've been saying, I don't need no stinkin' buttons. I wouldn't be able to use them to do what I want to do anyway! Wikipedia is weird. The legitimate usage of buttons is ... boring, practically by definition. So what happens? All too often, admins start using them according to natural inclinations ... i.e., for interesting stuff. Like "Take that, POV-pusher!" Or it becomes the thrill of the chase, "See if you can hide from me, sock puppet!" (A sock puppet who tries to hide, who makes himself or herself invisible, is very hard to detect, and probably we don't need to detect these! Unless, of course we want to punish them for past sins.) Buttons are, indeed, for pure service of the community, not of the admin's ideas, and those admins who use them that way are real heroes of Wikipedia. Like others who wield mops for low pay or none. I was nominated for adminship twice, both times quite prematurely, I was amazed to get about 50% the last time, given my way low edit count still. And I only accepted because I consider I have an obligation to help, when possible, and when asked. Thanks, SI, your command is my wish. Let me know if you need anything I might be able to help with, a piece of research, some writing, whatever. Coffee, tea? --Abd (talk) 14:53, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Jed Rothwell edits to my IP talk page.

Because my watchlist got way too full, I often don't notice edits to my IP talk page, User talk:Abd/IP until some time after they were done. I notice that Jed Rothwell, on January 31, added some comment there. There was prior comment from him, diff, my prior response there was this. The new comment was: diff. My response is here.

Apparently they have found a method of preventing from editing the Cold Fusion Talk pages. A pity, but the fun has to end sometime. If they do not want people like me editing, that's their business. I have a few more comments that are probably of interest to you alone:

Yes. The page is semiprotected. Protection was added by JzG, in fact, one more example of violation of administrative conduct guidelines. There are so many of these that I hardly know where to begin. (See User:Abd/Jzg and there is a draft on the issue of blacklisting specifically, in progress, at User:Abd/Blacklist, which is really about the whole blacklisting process, which is being abused to control content, not part of the blacklist mission, and the excuse of "linkspam," which was extraordinarily weak in the case of lenr-canr.org, was totally abandoned in the cast of the blacklisting of newenergytimes.com. Jed, this isn't about you, specifically. My concern is for Wikipedia. I wrote about how your behavior was harming the cause of open access to reliable information, particularly through Wikipedia, but I also consider your behavior understandable in context. In particular, it was not worse than the incivility you, yourself, faced. I consider you an expert on the topic, not as a scientist, but as a writer and editor. As an editor with a conflict of interest, due to your position with lenr-canr.org, policy would require that you confine yourself to making suggestions in Talk. Which, apparently, you have done, voluntarily, for quite some time, as far as I've seen.

You did not linkspam, period. The claims that you did are based on a shallow impression that Jzg was able to create. Your signature is offensive to some, but doesn't violate policy, since it does not contain a link. The name of a domain is not a link. It's quite like someone signing, "J. Smith, Professor of Electrochemistry, Famous University." In your case, it is simply a title.

You wrote: "Your IP edits are the primary reason lenr-canr.org has been blacklisted . . ." I don't see how that could be. It was blacklisted before I posted any comments. I did not know it was blacklisted until they tossed out Pierre, who told me.

No, I don't think you have the history correctly. The blacklisting was added December 18, 2008, by JzG, seriously out-of-process. (Another example of abuse of admin tools.) The only argument he made with the blacklisting that was at all relevant, if it had been true, was the linkspamming argument, which was based on your edits with your site name. Later, when the blacklisting was challenged, it appears that editors who only glanced shallowly at the evidence saw your signature and concluded: "Aha! Linkspamming!" I won't go into all the reasons this is actually a preposterous conclusion, it's enough that it is an easy one for a neutral but disinclined to seriously investigate editor or administrator. JzG did also assert the fringe argument, but we are not supposed to blacklist sites simple because they have some alleged fringe POV or bias. Some such sites can be used, and the blacklist wasn't designed to control content like that. It's being abused through a natural tendency for mission creep. And that needs addressing.

There are thousands of papers proving that cold fusion exists, and they are based on conventional, long established scientific principles and instruments such as x-ray film. The opponents look around and find a handful of papers written by people outside the field -- mainly crackpots. These papers violate conventional physics. They give these papers equal or greater weight than the conventional papers. They strip out technical details from the article, such as high levels of tritium, and they use words that seem to call into doubt results that no serious scientist would find doubtful.

Yes. You noticed. Now, I'm not personally sure that you are correct, the word "proof" is quite strong. I'm finding, reviewing the evidence, quite substantial reason to think that nuclear reactions are taking place, and if we have deuterium in and helium and tritium out, for example, fusion is an obvious hypothesis. Given the stronger results for deuterium oxide than for ordinary water, I think, again, that deuterium fusion is what it must be. But there is no settled theory as to what is actually taking place in the lattice. Further, your conclusions and my tentative conclusions are only background for Wikipedia. You and I are not "reliable source," except as to our own experiential reports and attributed opinions, and even that isn't usable, generally, for notability reasons. (You are sufficiently notable that in a sane project your opinions could be cited, at an appropriate level of article detail, but the legitimate forking of articles is being blocked as POV-motivated. Again, it will take time to deal with this without disruption.)

These people are also not well educated in general science. The other day, that fellow Phil took umbrage when I mentioned that the proof of cold fusion is based on conventional thermodynamics. He said something like "so is the proof it does not work." In other words, papers that claim to find errors in cold fusion are also based on thermodynamics. He is wrong about that. Most of these papers violate those principles, or other long established laws of science. By coincidence, Creationists also have confused notions about thermodynamics, and they say equally peculiar things which they mistakenly believe are based on those laws.

Yes. You noticed. Look, Jed, one of the worst things you can do to people is call them ignorant and be right. It really screws them up, because their natural defenses cause them to reject the truth. My own opinion is that, with proper restraint, you could have been -- and still could be -- an invaluable resource for assisting the creation of a truly accurate and complete and reliable and verifiable set of articles on the topic of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science, and on the historical phenomenon of the Cold fusion fiasco.

The point is, you get the impression that I am being arrogant, and someone else there apparently used this statement of mine as reason to ban me, but in fact I am only reporting the facts -- or at least, the facts as seen by all of the professional scientists who do cold fusion. If it sounds extreme to you (or arrogant) I believe that is because your point of view is far removed from mine.

Look, Jed, it takes one to know one. I recognize your arrogance because of my own. You are very, very smart, and quite knowledgeable. I learned years ago that this was not enough for good communication with people. Everyone has different capacities. You are not merely reporting the facts, you report them with an edge. In some cases, there might not be an edge in your intention or actual writing, in some cases it is projected by the person who perceives himself or his group as a target; but those of us who can see beyond conventional or common thinking have a responsible to take great care to avoid needlessly insulting people, even unintentionally. "It was just the facts" is an excuse that I learned was deadly to my relationships with people. And to go more into this would require more than I can express today, my time is limited. Semantics and communication theory.

(By the way, this "ability to see beyond" doesn't give us any special authority, and our ability in one field is often related to disabilities in other fields. We are all human, with different skills.)

One other thing. You seem concerned about this blacklisting of LENR-CANR.org and some other sites. You seem a little worried. Please set your mind at ease. It is not having any measurable effect on our traffic. It makes no difference outside of the closed world of Wikipolitics.

I'm not worried. Believe me, on the scale of things that I worry about, Wikipedia almost doesn't exist. You might read WP:DGAF. I see great potential value in Wikipedia; some of which has been realized, but there are obvious defects. They are remediable, but it will take some serious shifts in structure and in how participants view the project. The defacto oligarchy has become highly conservative, highly resistant to even small and relatively harmless changes. This is actually predictable in chaotic, anarchistic structures (Wikipedia is a hybrid, but the operating core is most easily described as anarchist, or distributed decision-making.) Many Wikipedians think that Wikipedia process is new and bold, but it's not. The exact application is new, though it was anticipated by lots of people, including myself, back in the 1980s and probably earlier than that. The problems with Wikipedia have existed with many other organizations, and there are classic solutions, plus a few modern ones. But all the solutions are, normally, rejected, on Wikipedia, and that's what happens when an oligarchy is allowed to arise without careful attention to structure.

My work with the blacklisting is focused on the benefit to the readers of links to lenr-canr.org, not to protecting lenr-canr.org from harm. I'm quite aware that Wikipedia has practically no power to harm you, it can only harm itself and the readers and editors who suffer from the blacklisting. The blacklisting, most remarkable, does not prevent the behavior that was the alleged reason for blacklisting, your addition of your domain name to your signature. Only links are prevented, not bare domain names, as is evidenced right here. I'm able to save this edit. I could not save a link. It's totally silly. And it violates policies. But to establish that and get a response from the community isn't necessarily easy. JzG is a popular administrator. He will get a lot of support. No matter what he's done, until and unless it has become blatantly obvious that a core policy has been violated. He's not the worst offender, by the way, and it's unfortunate that, if he really insists, he could lose his admin privileges over this. But I don't know that he will hold out that long. I'm not harassing him, but there is coming to be enough evidence for a user Requests for Comment filing. I can't do this by myself, but I'm taking this one step at a time, hoping that simple discussion between a very few editors will resolve it. I'm being told, "Not," but I have to assume the best.

Or I'm dead meat. Besides, I believe it. I think JzG should be given every opportunity. I think you have been abused and punished, in fundamentally silly ways. You should have been given every opportunity. As an expert in the field, we should have bent over backwards to make you welcome, and to assist you in being functionally collaborative. What happened to you has happened to experts over and over, so, Jed, this is certainly not just about you. Nor is it just about JzG, and JzG will be harmed (if losing adminship on Wikipedia is "harm," I have my doubts on that) only if he insists on holding, beyond all reason and opportunity, to a dangerous and harmful position.

Perhaps you take Wikipedia too seriously. Perhaps you ask too much of it. Wikipedia isn't bad, but like any institution it is dysfunctional in some ways, for some purposes. It is not a good forum for describing complex, controversial scientific research such as cold fusion. It is good for other things, so let's use it for other things, and leave cold fusion to J. Electroanal. Chem.

Jed, you have no idea what vision I have of Wikipedia. I ask nothing of it, though. I'm just doing what I can do, one step at a time. But I do know where the path probably leads, not necessarily in detail but in round outlines. It will be much better than you anticipate. Or, if not, some other and better project will arise, using Wikipedia as a base and adding -- and taking away -- what is needed in terms of process. My vision is actually far more general than Wikipedia, which is, for me, just an example, both for what is good about Wikipedia, and for what is not. Many of the errors made in structuring (or not structuring) Wikipedia have been made, over and over, in the past, and there are people who understood them and who have written about them, over more than fifty years (with roots going back much further. Those responsible for the project in the beginning apparently were not aware of prior work, which isn't surprising, it's not widely known. Instead there was a kind of trust in anarchist structures which is the norm among heavy computer experts and designers, with a notable field of success being open-source software. These people are often quite naive about the limitations of anarchist process; while, on the other hand, the "general public" is probably naive in the other direction. (I.e., it works much better than many would think, in certain areas.) Wikipedia's success could have been predicted, but also its limitations. They are quite natural, which is not a synonym for inevitable.

Many people, in situations like this, tend to ascribe problems to "bad guys." If we could just get rid of "them," things would be better. It's a false hope. The problems are a result of the structure; get rid of the "bad guys," new ones will simply appear to fill roles that the structure requires and enables. And "no structure" results in spontaneous structure, which tends to follow certain patterns and normally creates an oligarchy just like any other structure. So ... what to do?

Well, nature solved the problem long ago. And that's enough for today, maybe too much. --Abd (talk) 16:23, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Ugh! Worms taste awful.

Well, I have indeed opened a can of worms. Starting to write about the blacklisting process, I've realized that what I've seen with the two blacklisted cold fusion web sites was probably happening with others. Given the arguments given on the blacklist and whitelist pages, plenty of others. And, indeed, I noticed a whitelist request:

See this user page: User_talk:Lyriker

This user added 20 links to lyrikline.org on en.wiki, see Special:Contributions/Lyriker. As an IP editor (known by an edit to his Talk page, three more were added. IP geolocates to Berlin. Two of the links were added on 23 January 2008.

1. 12:41, 23 January 2008 (hist) (diff) m Paul Maar ‎ (→External links)
2. 12:23, 23 January 2008 (hist) (diff) m Michael Lentz

Lyriker was warned by User:MER-C at 12:43, 23 January 2008.

Lyriker responded civilly at 15:31.

Lyriker then requested MER-C to respond: [4]

Lyriker was blocked at 16:25, by Hu12, an active blacklist maintaining administrator. The block log reads:

• 16:24, 23 January 2008 Hu12 blocked Lyriker with an expiry time of indefinite [template]: Usernames that contain a domain or imply a web address)

Lyriker did respond to the block notice on February 12, but did not put up an unblock template.

The user name "lyriker" does not imply "lyrikline.org," in the least. "Lyriker" is "poet" in German. So a new editor interested in poetry, takes the name "poet," then adds what seem to be helpful links to a major source for permitted copies of poetry as well as audio of the poets reading their own work. Looking at the web site, there isn't the slightest reason to suspect copyright violation. User:MER-C, on the user page, has a photo of a nuclear explosion, with the caption, Wikipedia disposes of another day's worth of vanity, spam, drivel and other rubbish. Talk about WP:BATTLE!

This was User:MER-C's compilation of evidence: User:MER-C/lyrikline.org. A Wikiproject spam report was filed at 12:52. The user was not notified of this. A massive effort then ensued to remove all links to lyrikline.org. Now, the user did, through IP known to be Lyriker, add links to other wikis. For example, this. Was this linkspam? That depends, surely, on whether or not the links were allowed. If linkspamming is cause for disallowing links, it's circular. Was Lyriker linkspamming or was Lyriker contributing valuable content? As a reader, it looks to me like the latter.

User:Hu12 took lyrikline.org to the meta blacklist, and it was added quickly. No discussion. It would seem to be, for these administrators, an obvious case, not marginal at all.

As to copyright violation: there seems to be a presumption of copyright violation in the absence of strong proof of no violation; claims of copyvio I have seem frequently in the cases I've looked at; but actual evidence of violation seems, in these cases, thin to nonexistent. It's an assumption.

The decision to allow a link in an article would generally be a matter for editors of the article to determine. However, I can agree that some project-wide standards can exist, and specific determinations could be made for a site; that's what the blacklist is supposed to be; except that it seems to be run by, well, administrators who "nuke" spam or "stifle" content. The project page, WP:WikiProject spam has a battleship image, with guns massively firing.

There was a delist request in March 2008, apparently from a German editor. Denied, because of the "excessive link placement."

There was a delist request on meta in April 2008. Denied. Reason: the original linkspamming evidence, plus the copyvio allegation. Conflict of interest is raised, which would seem to be an assumption based on the user name (a rather unlikely assumption, i.e., the user name does not at all imply association with the site) de.WP is mentioned (as it was in the original report.) Lyriker was not blocked on de.WP, though alleged linkspam there is part of the evidence of linkspamming. It's noted in the delist request that the blacklisting has been discussed on de.WP, but "nobody seems to know the reason."

What are the standards that were used to blacklist lyrikline.org? The lyrikline.org links were external links, and I read WP:EXT as allowing these links.

The whitelist request was denied. The blacklisters claim that, no problem, you can get pages you need whitelisted. But when whitelist is requested, it's jumping through hoops and requests seem typically denied for the orignal -- defective -- reasons. Can of worms. The readers? Who cares about the readers? It's our standards, man! --Abd (talk) 21:52, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

You should read the discussions on the german wikipedia - they've also had the problem with de:Benutzer_Diskussion:Lyrik. He was also the IP:62.96.74.70 (check contribs to *.wikipedia: [5]). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:25, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't read German, but I suppose I could babelfish it. I'm not convinced that Lyriker here was a problem, but he did make a few edits as IP here, and he edited his Talk page as the IP, then logged in and signed it. This user wasn't trying to hide what he was doing. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that the project has been hijacked by administrators who are not serving the readers, they are serving an abstract concept of a neat, tidy encyclopedia. Lyrikline.org is a perfect example of a good External link. So somebody thinks it's a good idea to add it to articles, and does so. Immediately blocked? Kim, is this your vision of Wikipedia: harsh, unwelcoming, rigid, ingrown? I'll read the de.WP page. --Abd (talk) 01:07, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The user Lyrik was warned on de.WP, but not blocked. In the discussion, there is reference to cross-wiki spam, "supposedly by the operators." No evidence has been presented -- that I saw -- that the operators of lyrikline.org had anything to do with adding the links. That idea would seem to have originated from the name Lyriker. I.e., "Poet." Conclusion for de.WP? See the de.WP whitelist. It's not long, and lyrikline.org is right there. They didn't have a "problem with Lyrik," they had a problem with meta, which did not respond to delist requests from German users.

Now, we could try again to get lyrikline.org delisted. But the problem isn't simply about lyrikline, nor is it about a single administrator, it is about an entire culture of valiant warriors against POV-pushing, fringe advocates, vandals, and spammers. It's a battle being fought with entirely insufficient attention to collateral damage. The purpose of the project has been forgotten, in the heat of this constant struggle. What would have been a bad thing about leaving those links in place? What reader would have been misled or harmed?

JzG raised the specter of copyright violation risk to Wikipedia with lenr-canr.org, but the precedent he cites, I'm sure, has to do with knowingly linking to copyright violation. Where there is no reason to believe that copyright is being violated, there is no obligation to avoid linking to a page. WP:EL says, Knowingly directing others to material that violates copyright may be considered contributory infringement. I could find no policy that says, as it seems to be assumed by the blacklist administrators, that we must have proof of license to link to a page; indeed, the language of our policies implies only that knowingly linking to copyright violation should not be done. --Abd (talk) 02:02, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The reason that lyrikline got whitelisted on de, wasn't that they weren't convinced of spamming - quite the opposite. But instead that a user volunteered to police (ie. check for spam) the links with regular intervals. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 11:44, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

See below. What was the evidence of spamming? That a user added links, many of them (not a huge number, but it may have been something like thirty on de. How do we know the difference between spamming and legitimate addition of external links? I haven't looked at all the links, but most of them are still there, and those that aren't were removed by IP from Australia, our User:MER-C, I conclude, and quite likely simply escaped notice. In other words, where there was admin attention on de as to the usability of the links, consensus appears to be that they were fine. How many of them were actually "spam"? Looks like none of them to me, none that I've seen so far. There might be a few. So the only project where there as actual attention to the links themselves and their usability has concluded that they were legitimate. Can legitimate links be "spammed."?

I don't think so. Linkspam is, by definition, inappropriate linking, massively added, so massively that control by ordinary editorial measures, blocks, or bots, has become impossible. What everybody saw was a lot of links added by a single editor (as an account or as IP), and they concluded that this must be spam because it was a large quantity. Not what I'd call "massive," and the editor seems to have almost totally stopped when warned. But s/he was blocked anyway, because of a totally spurious claim of inappropriate username. What's the current state? Because of the whitelist request recently denied, it seems, someone looked at the bot that collects statistics on blacklisted domains and went to de and did assisted edits (clearly, but not labelled as such) to remove something like 22 links. And an admin there promptly warned the editor, and reverted them all.

The de response was reasonable: they didn't need a blacklisting to control this kind of possible spam. All that was needed was to look at the edits, and, in fact, that is and was extremely simple. There has been far more disruption and editorial labor required because of the blacklisting than was avoided. In any case, if this isn't directly resolved with low-level discussions, I'll be escalating it. Village Pump? What do you think? In the matter of stuff relating to Cold fusion, there was admin abuse, so AN might be appropriate, but with lyrikline.org's blacklisting, I don't see abuse, as such, but carelessness and snap judgments that didn't get corrected when challenged. The blacklisting/delisting/whitelisting process is broken, and is being used to enforce factional opinion regarding external link appropriateness, and not in accordance with those guidelines, and very clearly not in accordance with serving readers.

My theory is that a view of the project as some shining abstraction, pure, free of POV, with tight standards, is being held; that a "perfect encyclopedia" is the goal, and that the use of the encyclopedia matters less. Even if I read an article on a poet, and lyrikline.org contains actual readings from that poet (audio), and permitted copies of the poetry of that poet, a link to this isn't allowed. Because? Because someone allegedly linkspammed? But if all the links were similarly appropriate, it wasn't linkspam!

In another example, a book is legitimate source for an article. No dispute about that. However, the book is not common. Nevertheless, a citation of the book is allowed, rarity isn't an issue, since the book can be obtained, possibly, from some library. How difficult this is is not considered relevant. Now, as it happens, the author and publisher of the book have given permission for lenr-canr.org to host a copy of the book. Lenr-canr.org isn't the source, the book is. Can we link to the copy of the book at lenr-canr.org? Lenr-canr.org is alleged to be a fringe web site. Is that relevant? Who determines?

What the blacklist administrator who denied the whitelist request, initially (the admin has since recused himself), wrote was that because the link wasn't needed to verify the reference, whitelisting wasn't needed. That the difference in labor for the reader between using an ISBN reference to a linkfarm which will ultimately lead to a search for libraries with the book, and purchase sources, or simply linking to the free copy, was very great, wasn't considered to be of any importance whatever. I.e., some kind of not-clearly expressed set of rules about what can be linked, applied in the abstract, quite apart from the individual needs of articles or classes of articles, is considered to be of more importance than serving our readers. The "project" is more important than serving our readers with the best possible encyclopedia. And this is, to my mind, fundamentally backwards. To try to be all things to all readers would be foolish; Wikipedia shouldn't become a massive linkfarm; on the other hand, often, external links in Wikipedia articles have proven to be more valuable to me than whatever was written in the article. Sources are important, not just for verification, but for further study, and, indeed, this is how university students legitimately use Wikipedia. Just for verification, though, I once came across a reference to a published paper that seemed a little odd to me. The paper wasn't available on-line. The reference had stood for more than a year, unchallenged. Because the specific topic was of interest to me, I went to the trouble of finding it in a library. It had been radically and blatantly misinterpreted or misrepresented. (I think that there may have been accidental meanings of words in the abstract of the paper that was available on-line, I didn't think that evidence of deliberate misrepresentation existed. Rather, someone used the abstract as if it were the source!) If the paper had been accessible on-line, the misrepresentation would have been quickly discovered, I'm sure, since the article was one with frequent controversy and edit warring. The abstract concept of verifiability has taken precedence over the facilitation of verification. This is, in fact, a violation of WP:IAR, a fairly clear one. If we can find on-line copies of papers that appear to be with permission (legally, we are only required to avoid deliberately linking to copyvio, we don't need proof of permission), if the copies are deemed to be reliable copies, we should link to them when we source the paper, if they aren't available directly from the publisher or author. This is directly opposite to the expressed views of blacklist/whitelist administrators. --Abd (talk) 17:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Damn worms keep crawling out of my screen. I decided to look at the edits of Lyriker IP on de.wp, see [6]. These edits were cited as evidence of linkspam, among others. So looked at an article history: [7]. The addition of the lyrikline link on Jan 22, 2008 was followed by a revert from 124.178.51.181 on Jan 24. contributions for that IP is all on Jan 24, the IP is from Australia. In the meta blacklist discussion, User:MER-C stated: "I reverted all the IPs' edits." So that would be MER-C who removed them, probably not having an account on de.wp, the user just came in as IP and reverted. I found an article where, then, same day, lyrikline.org [8] was then reinserted by another editor. And so it sat until April, when it was again removed. However, some links were not removed then. See [9], where Lyrik moved a link that had been placed earlier by an IP edit. That link remained until Feb 3, when an editor was doing extensive reformatting and apparently could not save the page without removing the link. Thus the blacklist forces editors to remove blacklisted links whenever they edit a section containing one of them. This is why blacklist instructions require the removal of such links as part of the blacklisting process; however, MER-C did not complete the work. As another example, in August 2007, Lyrik (as IP) added the link to an article. There it stood until Kanonkas removed it on Jan 28, 2009 with reference to a spam monitoring tool; see discussion on Kanonkas Talk. Kanonkas contributions to de shows that Kanonkas removed 22 lyrikline links from de.wp that day. By the end of the day, apparently, they were all restored by User:lustiger seth, a de admin who is, now, also admin here (successful RfA in December). These would be the links that MER-C missed, apparently. --Abd (talk) 03:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

On Palladium

Nice to come home and find an interesting conversation going on in my living room. Tea, coffee? --Abd (talk) 16:34, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

On the CF talk page you asked me: And I need to decide whether or not to put half my life savings into palladium. What do you think?

I brought it here since it's off topic. I don't know about Palladium but perhaps this is more worthy of investment? They have a working prototype, verified by other scientists, plus a number of high level scientists working on the actual project. And some very well credentialed investors, including convential commercial energy companies, who've provided $60 million in funding. These are smart people and they can't all be deluded. The only objections are theoretical ones, which you don't credit. Anyway, something to ponder on and maybe invest in! Phil153 (talk) 06:42, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I allow myself to go off topic for a sentence or a few. You were right to bring this here, though there is a connection with Cold fusion. It's correct that I don't credit theoretical rejections of experimental results. However, theoretical explanations of experimental results are quite welcome; particularly when they then suggest further experiment. Further, that an experimental result is unexplained proves nothing. It's when experimental results are repeatable and unexplained that it gets really interesting. And of course, there is the problem of experimental results that are sometimes confirmed and sometimes not. With objective analysis, not contaminated by theoretical belief, it's possible to come up with a probability that this kind of variation could be normal. Or not. So, to me, a huge issue is the possible contamination of the scientific process by entrenched theory and possible conflicts of interest. It's an old, old story, actually.

In other words, I understand the concept of systematic error produced by a desire for positive results. Negative experiments are set aside ("something wrong with these") and only positive results are reported. Drug companies doing drug research, anyone? (The COI of drug companies is obvious, but the COI of someone who wants to find something exciting is just as real.) But I also understand the problem of massive rejection based on supposed theoretical impossibility. And I'm not seeing, in my reading on the topic, any recent reviews of the field that do the kind of meta-analysis that is needed.

A group of smart people can all be deluded. But I wouldn't bet on it. It's more likely, on average, that they aren't. However, Blacklight Power is a private company. All kinds of weird things could be going on there. They sold kits at one point. Did these kits work? I've had some similar thoughts, though I'd aim for something quite modest: a home palladium electrolysis kit that would include all the materials and equipment needed to run some simple experiments. Plug it in to the wall, install some software on your computer, plug a USB cable between the computer and the device, and watch the results. Which are also centrally collected. Kit construction and sources are thoroughly documented. Kits consist of several parts, and each part can be purchased separately, the basic kits would be (1) consumables or equipment that is damaged in the process, (2) operating equipment (power supply, control interface, instrumentation. Software would be open source and free. The company selling the kits would buy the operating equipment back. Project Galileo run by New Energy Times attempted to set up some standard reproducible experiments, but Krivit told me that getting a group of maverick researchers to agree on anything was difficult to impossible. I understand. But with the model I just suggested, you don't need to get a whole bunch of mavericks to agree, you just find out what they think, what has worked for them, and try to come up with a kit design, that most agree should work, privately, i.e., the ultimate decision is made by those who invest in the company (or donate to it if it's non-profit, or as a nonprofit board decides). (The kit would probably use co-deposition, since the SPAWAR group is claiming reproducibility, and it should be possible to miniaturize it so that the consumables are cheap.) With a couple of iterations, early on, the effort would either show that such a simple demonstration is still not possible -- which would essentially blow the SPAWAR results out of the water as far as reasonable replication is concerned -- or that something is reproducible. What is the something. Since these would be standard kits, all as identical as possible, it then becomes much more possible to find out. There may be a thousand ways of doing it "wrong," i.e., the experimental anomaly doesn't show up, and only one way to do it right. The "right" has to be reproducible before it can be determined what exact experimental conditions are necessary, and then to vary them or observe them or quantify them, etc., to explore the mechanism. You know the most expensive part of the kits? CR-39 chips. It appears that one sheet of the stuff is like $600; but with a miniaturized experiment, it might be possible to get a hundred chips that are big enough for maybe $6 each.

It was assumed initially that the experiment was simple to reproduce. Fleischmann never claimed that; he wrote later that he was nowhere near ready to announce, but the university insisted. It seems to have taken many years to come up with methods that usually produce the anomalies. What if, for example, there is some element that must be present in trace quantities to catalyze, say, fusion? Fleischmann-type results seem to depend heavily on the exact source of palladium. The kits I mention would probably use a single source and batch of palladium chloride, they would include water and lithium chloride, all the same source and batch. Same glassware, stoppers, electrodes, etc. Computer control of the charging profile would make it all uniform. And the project would be funded by the experimenters, lots of them (high school science fair project, anyone?). The goal of this would not be to prove that cold fusion -- or whatever the hell it is -- works, but simply to create a standardized experiment that shows the anomaly, and failure is in itself interesting. While the experimenter still has the full kit, and hasn't returned the experimentation package, variations could be tried. This approach should be far cheaper than trying to put together a kit from published descriptions. Anybody could run an experiment, either the standardized one, or modifications. I believe that the consumables could be sold for under $100 (possibly well under). CR-39 analysis could be done by a standard lab. The full package would be sold for well under $1000, and that's essentially refundable, less what is simply a handling charge to cover costs of cleaning and testing, etc., and a small amount to support the capitalization. Want to continue experimenting? All the elements are available for sale, the hardware/instrumentation kit would simply be kept (the buyback offer might expire or be modified at some point, simply because the kit, as sold, would become obsolete).

Blacklight Energy? I wouldn't rule it out. Maybe. No, I wouldn't put my money there, I still think the possibility of fraud to be too high. See below. Palladium is, well, solid stuff. The current price is quite low, compared to history, because of the collapse of the auto industry, which buys tons of palladium for use in catalytic converters. I'd say it's a good investment right now. It might decline in price a bit more, but not likely to go far. If I were adventurous and willing to take a lot of risk, palladium futures would be the way to go. But I'm not. Either the metal itself or secure deposit in a solid bank. Credit Suisse used to offer palladium accounts. They would actually buy the metal and hold it on your behalf, but because you never took possession, the only risk was of the failure of Credit Suisse, accompanied by fraud. Not likely. (The accounts, of course, paid no interest; indeed, there was a modest storage charge, and there were fees for every buy or sell transaction. But it was, in 1989, far, far simpler than actually buying the metal. No profit for the seller, no tax issues, profit and loss very clear. Spot prices. Credit Suisse could buy and sell with the greatest facility, their service was well worth the fees. (These accounts were used by Muslims because no interest was involved, yet they would track inflation.. Gold accounts were, I'm sure, much more popular.) --Abd (talk) 16:34, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Discussing your first two paragraphs, and this: A group of smart people can all be deluded. But I wouldn't bet on it. It's more likely, on average, that they aren't, I'm going to run through some simple reasoning that often gets forgotten.

a priori, a group of smart people is a bad thing to bet against. We agree. But selection bias destroys that completely. Look at it this way: in a group of hundreds of thousands of professional physicists and chemists, some percentage are going to be convinced of the truth of evidence for a non existent phenomenon, X. The great diversity of competence, experiences, desire, philosophies, care, laziness and sanity guarantees that. Further, I think certain conditions make X a stronger candidate to be believed by a reasonable number of people, despite X being false:

• The experiment to show X relies on measurements in the same order of magnitude as error
• The experiment to show X relies on equipment which is frequently unreliable (i.e. calorimetry...ask an impartial expert)
• The experiment to show X relies on equipment that is easy to use but requires much specialist ability and care for accuracy
• X has the possibility of greatly helping the human race if true, or vindicating some personal belief or hope about reality.
• X holds the promise of great personal reward (broadly construed)
• X has a body of apology explaining why replication is likely to be sporadic and uncontrollable
• X has an experimental setup requiring a great deal of time and effort to get a result

And guess what? Many of these points apply to fringe fields. Look at parapsychology and attempts to prove quantum-consciousness links (one such long running group is PEAR, which went for 30 years claiming irrefutable proof).

There are many kinds of selection bias operating to select believers in X. If X, our hypothetical non existent phenomenon, has a good possibility of error unless extreme care is taken, and scientists generally become convinced by their own results more than anything else (Goodstein 1994), then enough researchers attempting an X experiment will self assemble into groups. One group will contain those lacking the care, competence, philosophical sophistication, expertise in some aspect, etc, to reliably avoid and minimize errors, which is the reason they keep getting positive results. They will eventually become the proponents of our non existence phenomenon, X. The very careful experimenters, those who are experts in every relevant skill and diligently seek falsification, will try it, find nothing, and move on. So you end up with walled gardens consisting of people who have a tendency to err in particular ways (remember that X is non existent).

Do you see what I'm getting at? Importantly, as far as cold fusion is concerned, observation seems to bear that out. Most of the papers I've read are so poorly done, so contradictory, so unaware that I wonder about their ability to do good experiments in this particular area. And it's not just me; the few pieces of external review we have seem to strongly support that. For example, most of the DOE researchers pointedly noted the poor experimental designs, documentation, and background controls, which hampered understanding. And those were from a sample selected by the most credentialed people in the field, as the best available evidence, conclusively demonstrating LENR. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? The other external window we have on the field is from a judge in Italy in 1996, who hear both side's arguments in a libel suit brought by Fleischmann, Pons, Bressani, Preparata and Giudice against a newspaper. The judge's conclusion was that the researchers seemed "separated from reality", and he awarded the win and costs to the defendants. More conspiracy? More bias? Judge Stupido? Or an honest and independent assessment of the most credentialed proponents in the field?

In conclusion, I don't think we can look at any of these fields and conclude that because a couple of hundred reasonably credentialed scientists (out of many tens of thousands) and 20 or so highly credentialed scientists (out of a couple of thousand), agree with X, there must be something to it. If they were a random cross section, then I would be far more inclined to give it the huge amount of weight that you do.

And frankly I think you're too swayed by the rhetoric of true believers, and too quick to believe that the quiet disbelievers aren't careful thinkers or "haven't actually looked at the evidence". Certainly, some haven't, perhaps many, and I agree that science does have pathologies of the status quo. Both socially and pedagoguically (is that a word?), undergrad and postgrad physics are little more than indoctrination camps in the status quo. Our current teaching methods trap entire generations of creative and fresh minds into looking at nature from a particular bias. But even so, nuclear physics has a good stable of curious, conscientious thinkers, and people like Goodstein should give you pause, I think. And so should Josephson, who you mentioned below. Do you know that he also believes in a quantum-consciousness link, and other kooky stuff? Coincidence? Evidence of openmindedness, or something less flattering? In my own wonderings, I haven't found a single CF advocate yet who doesn't raise major questions in my mind about their reliability as a witness and experimenter for such a complex subject. See, for example, the Washington Post article that I like to quote [10]. I don't see the depth of thought, care, philosophical sophistication and an appreciation of subtlety sufficient for me to trust their claims, their experiments and their thinking. Even a single advocate who didn't have these deficiencies would see me reevaluate my position.

BTW, I agree that the evidence for Blacklight is very different to the evidence for cold fusion. Not even close in volume or quality. But I thought it would be a fun way of pinning down your exact position, and I'm glad you took it good naturedly. Phil153 (talk) 17:03, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Now, as to what you have written about selection bias, most of it is quite correct and some of it is applicable. To determine whether selection bias is operating, one needs to much more comprehensively look at the details. For example, to apply this to LENR evidence, we'd have to assume, for your first characteristic, that LENR evidence relies on on measurements in the same order of magnitude as error. Now, it's possible to come to conclusions from many such measurements, but that's not the biggest problem with this application. Some experimental results, especially early ones, were like that. There are now results where the signal to noise ratio is more like 100:1. There is the matter of CR-39. I'd say that the issue of whether or not the CR-39 effects are due to ionizing radiation or due to chemical damage or some kind of localized corona effect still exists, to a degree, but it's been mostly addressed. In particular, a mylar shield was placed between the cell cathode/electrolyte and the detector and the claimed alpha radiation effect was reduced, as would be expected from the mylar, i.e., but it was not gone. Further, at some point it was noticed that the back side of the chip had apparent radiation damage. That's not coming from alpha radiation. There is a likely explanation: neutrons, which do not themselves damage CR-39. But proton recoil does. There are many, many evidences where the signal is far above noise (in this case, background radiation, with the chemical and corona hypotheses pretty well disproven).

What we'd want to know is what the opinion is among experts who are familiar with the evidence. There is still selection bias, but if you read debates and discussion among the researchers, you'd see that they are mostly far from ready to jump to conclusions. There is vigorous criticism going on within the field. I'll address more details later. The Galileo project did, apparently, have positive results. This was an attempt at a standard, very highly defined, reproducible experiment, repeated by many groups. It was not designed to prove "cold fusion," but to come up with an experimental design that showed the effects. Kowalski's somewhat critical work is pretty amateurish, but the SPAWAR work isn't. Phil, what I've been saying to you is that I understand the reasons to be critical and I see that there is enough going on that assuming that cold fusion is disproven would be foolish. There are open questions, there has been insufficient confirmation, in my opinion, given the potential importance.

Calorimetry is indeed difficult, that is certainly an issue. However, there have been improvements in calorimetry since 1989. These improvements have not made the results go away. For us to use anything around this we need secondary sources. There are some in normally reliable news sources. What's needed to go beyond this is review articles published in "mainstream" journals. And that's what is very difficult to get; my guess at this point is that the articles are being written and are not being published because of the bad reputation of the field. It is really hard to find recent comprehensive review of the field in independent reliable source. New Energy Times is actually pretty good: for example, Krivit debunked the company D2fusion, possibly contributing to its demise (a probably deserved demise). NET doesn't uncritically accept results, though it may report them. The comment about critics who don't know the latest research comes from Krivit, who interviewed these people. Have you read his account? --Abd (talk) 17:42, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. Let me see if I read this correctly. They take nickel which is doped with sodium hydroxide and, presumably, mix it with water. They then observe a sudden burst of heat. Gee, that IS mysterious, isn't it? The good news is that at least it is reproducible.  :) --GoRight (talk) 07:37, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe. The claims are that those who have reproduced it find it difficult to account for the excess heat through chemical process. The question here is how much heat is produced. Further, if the heat is chemically generated, this might still be interesting as a kind of battery. How efficient is it? Etc. If I'm correct, they are not claiming cold fusion. Just heat. Smart. --Abd (talk) 16:34, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's kind of analagous to packing large amounts of combustible hydrogen into cells that are nearly always open to the air, then running a spark through them, and getting heat bursts. Don't you think? Even if NaOH plays a role, the total power integrated over the life of the experiment is claimed to far exceed anything possible from chemical reactions. They claim a sustained 50KW. And a careful reading of the article shows that amount of NaOH is very small, and that even the sporadic results obtained are "far beyond" anything expected by chemical reactions. In addition, they have a "good handful of high level scientists", and a former government Assistant Secretary of Nuclear Energy, as well as energy companies, putting money in. These aren't schmucks, but very smart people putting up $60M of their own dough, as well as their reputations. So far, the ONLY dismissal by mainstream science are based on theory, from people who haven't even tested the thing! All the experiments support the claims. You would have to deny the laws of thermodynamics and called all the researchers deluded to deny these results. Seems like an obvious investment for someone who uses similar logic about cold fusion and is looking to invest. Phil153 (talk) 10:17, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, no. An investment in palladium is solid regardless of CF claims. But if CF or LENR is confirmed, palladium would experience a fairly rapid increase in value. Nickel? No, there is a lot of nickel available, the impact on the nickel market would be much smaller. Given that this is a private company, some crucial details are still secret, the possibility for fraud, for starters, is way too high. They should not be dismissed, and, indeed, what they are doing seems to be notable and should be covered by the project, but this is well below what is available as confirmation on LENR. "All the experiments" seems to be just a few, with control of crucial experimental conditions by the company.

The kits I mentioned would not be "scientific proof," because of tight control of the conditions by a company (even if a nonprofit dedicated to neutrality, openness, and not dependent on "positive" results). Rather, studies of the kits, reproduction of the kits with various degrees of independence, including total reproduction using nothing from the kit company, would then, when published in peer-reviewed reliable sources, get closer. And when this reaches the level of secondary review, it starts to be something that could be reported as fact, depending on the level of controversy that remains. Long before that, however, we'd probably see news reports, etc., that would allow us to inform the readers of the state of affairs in the field.

I'd like to get more information about what exactly happened with project Galileo. You know, there is a journal which reported the results; journalistic standards appear to have been followed; the publication covers the field, but as far as I've seen, covers it neutrally, i.e., critical work is reported; it just happens to be that there isn't much of that! And we have blacklisted that on-line journal, newenergytimes.com. Without linkspamming, without even a clear debate, but simply assertions of "fringe." I don't think this will stand. It's quite analogous to banning an editor because of their alleged POV. We can use fringe sources, if they are notable and attributed. (Balance is a separate issue, and has to do with how and where a source is used.) --~~

"claimed sustained 50KW" - which apparently has been running since May, but which no-one has seen. "Far beyond", "good handful of scientists", and a politico. Hmmm. But what really interesting is the claim that "hydrinos" form diatomic molecules, apparently while the electrons that provide the binding are still in one of the sekrit sub-s orbitals. Sure... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Look, when there are unexplained experimental results, crazy hypotheses are welcome. Stephen, skepticism is appropriate, but sarcastic rejection is highly unscientific. Basically, you are not standing on science, and the "scientific consensus" that you seem to be following is, in this case, not a deliberated and considered one, but a kind of default persistence of opinion from those not involved with the field. Ask your average scientist about "cold fusion." "Ah! that hoax from twenty years ago! Junk science!" Ask those familiar with the peer-reviewed literature from the last ten years, you may get a very different answer. What Krivit found and reported, interviewing the notable skeptics, was that they didn't know the recent research, and some of them angrily dismissed any raising of the issue. That is a symptom of ossified science, I've seen it happen in a number of fields. It's not the norm, and it is not at all the same as what happens, scientifically, with Global warming. Remember, the 2004 DOE report acknowledged persistent experimental anomalies, and suggested continued research to identify the cause, they just didn't think the evidence was strong enough to warrant a massive federal program. "Not convincing," is not a polite expression for "Junk." Simply for results and theories not yet advanced to the point of being "convincing." For a general panel. (That is expertise on the panel wasn't necessarily focused closely on those who would have been following the field, but rather would include nuclear physicists, as an example, entirely unfamiliar with electrochemistry, as an example, or calorimetry in that context.) --Abd (talk) 16:34, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

No, "crazy" hypotheses are only welcome as a last resort. There is an infinite number of crazy hypotheses. The chances of picking the right one are minuscule. Its much more fruitful to start with the boring ones. Also, of course, "Blacklight Energy" has nothing to do with cold fusion, but rather with supposed energy states of the electron below the normal base state. For some weird reasons, these are never observed directly, or by independent researchers, or in nature. And somehow the electrons in this Hydrino are still supposed to form covalent bonds despite being below the ground state. This is complete and utter nonsense. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:42, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure, you start with the boring hypotheses, but when these are rejected because they don't fit the facts, one must move into more exotic ideas. Now, where does "deliberate fraud" fit in here? As the New York Times wrote, "seems unlikely," or some language like that, but I'd not discount it. Mills might be trying to raise large amounts of investment funds, for example, then, before the moment of truth, the reckoning that nobody can reproduce the effect, he disappears. I'll follow the Times, though. This guy didn't just appear, and the theory behind what they are doing isn't lightweight. If it's a snow job, it's a quite well done one. Look, Stephen, I don't know if you care about being smart or not, i.e., being able to see beyond the prison of belief, but I could tell you how to do it: it is to suspend judgment until one must judge. To hold, simultaneously, multiple conflicting opinions. Lots of people can't do it, which is why lots of people are considered geniuses. To be able to do this, though, correlates poorly with being well-organized, which is why, indeed, lots of people are "so smart," but aren't "rich."

(edit conflict) Blacklight energy is claiming independent verification of the energy involved, but details are scant as yet. What was done was to supply the prepared "fuel," being a form of nickel doped with a "little" sodium hydroxide. Above, it's noted that chemical reactions from this material, and air or water, could produce heat, and certainly it could. However, how much heat? What is being claimed is that calorimetry shows -- and this is relatively straightforward calorimetry, apparently -- shows something like 100 times the heat being generated as could be explained by the chemistry. I.e., nickel will burn, under the right conditions. So it all burns, everything in there burns, perhaps extracting hydrogen from the water, which also burns (the hydrogen, not the water, which is fully oxidized, but which holds on to hydrogen less strongly than some metals. Why hasn't Blacklight Energy published the exact formula and process? Two easy explanations: fraud, trying to gather funding before having proven the process, or, quite simply, money. Blacklight claims the latter, they are internally researching it and want to have a leg up before releasing details. Note that Blacklight has apparently been pursuing patents that haven't been granted, but some Caltech researchers did get a patent last year on hydrino energy, it's claimed to be, using Casimir cavities to extract energy from the vacuum of space, and it is claimed that this explains the Blacklight Energy device or process. In other words, somebody else may have beat them to it, so the only advantage they have is their trade secrets. Fraud or investment and financial prudence?

Let me put it this way: Before putting money into BE, I'd certainly want to see a lot more, and I'd want to have my own experts review it. Under nondisclosure agreements, BE should be willing to disclose it all. And if not, well, rats do smell, you know. --Abd (talk) 19:17, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, there some relation. Edmund Storms, a prominent cold fusion researcher, brought it up in his book as a possible explanation for cold fusion (see Hydrino theory). Phil153 (talk) 18:57, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Storm tries to co-opt this, which really does not help his credibility at all. But Blacklight does not claim cold fusion. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:04, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

While I am certainly not trying to say that I believe in these hydrinos, personally I don't see the hypothesis that there may be additional stable energy states below the one that we currently consider to be the base all that "crazy" or "outlandish". It seems a natural extension of existing theory. Contrast this, for example, against something like Schrödinger's cat being simultaneously alive and dead just until someone happens to peek inside the box. To me that is a far more radical concept than the one being described here and yet it is widely accepted and not considered fringe, right? --GoRight (talk) 19:12, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, and its interpretation is highly non-trivial. It's a macroscopic illustration of a quantum phenomenon, and no-one claims that this experiment can be done at the macroscopic level, since you cannot achieve the total isolation of the system from the observer. Lower quantum states of the hydrogen atom are incompatible with quantum mechanics. They may appear "plausible", but not to someone with a reasonable understanding of physics. If you look at Hydrino theory, you might notice that several of the critical papers are published in reputable journals, but the supporting sources are only company white papers or, at best on arXiv. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:32, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Yet no one seems to be referring to Schrödinger as a "whacko".  :)

"They may appear 'plausible', but not to someone with a reasonable understanding of physics." - And hence my statement that I don't "believe" in hydrinos. "Plausible" is probably too strong a description of my actual statement. "Possible" is probably a better fit.

"Lower quantum states of the hydrogen atom are incompatible with quantum mechanics." - Which is only significant if one accepts the theory of quantum mechanics as it is currently defined ... which may of course be completely wrong. --GoRight (talk) 19:50, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Here's, I think, the rub. Our current scientific theories are quite likely wrong. But they are very probably not "completely wrong", but wrong only in subtle aspects that have little influence on the scales we usually observer. Newtonian physics is at least doubly wrong, but it's an incredibly good approximation for the middle world - in fact, it emerges both from general relativity as the limit if you move to smaller and slower systems, and from quantum mechanics as you move to larger systems. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:45, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Granted to some level. But how do you know that quantum mechanics is not merely at the Ptolemaic level in our understanding of the truth? Sure you can make predictions with the current quantum theories, but so could Claudius Ptolemy right? That didn't make him even close to right. --GoRight (talk) 21:11, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Ships passing in the night? "Completely wrong" was, of course, unlikely. Rather, "not complete" would be all that is necessary for a conclusion that something is impossible to be "completely wrong."

Many-worlds interpretation

Stephan's comment above got me to thinking and since we are talking about weird fringe stuff, I was curious about what you all think of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics? Do any of you subscribe to this particular view? If not, do you consider this to be a fringe idea? Actually, a quick review of the Interpretation of quantum mechanics yields a entire cornucopia of possibilities which are not being treated as fringe. I just find that kind of funny given the efforts being put into calling Cold fusion/LENR/CANR fringe. (Let me know if you don't want to entertain this on your talk page, Abd.) --GoRight (talk) 20:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

It's fine as long as you remain polite. If I don't like it, I can always quickly archive or even delete. My Talk page. Love it or leave it. The topic of what is "fringe" is an interesting one, though it really shouldn't have the significance it's made to have. Reliable source for a theory or claim, it's usable on the project, and calling the topic or POV "fringe" often leads to ... well, incivility, among other things. Just like calling an article on your favorite video game "fancruft."

Now, on the question of "fringe," I came across this: [11]. In it, Nobel prize-winner and Cambridge physics professor Brian Josephson recounts his experiences with arXiv.org related to cold fusion. Sounds a tad like Wikipedia.... Our article on him led me to his home page at [12] (it's an External link! Fringe advocacy! Call the blacklisters!). And this led me to a very interesting article by Steven Krivit of New Energy Times, an article which tends to confirm my impression of Krivit as a serious journalist. Claims that I've seen that the CF community isn't self-critical aren't supported by this article. I'd link to the article except, of course, NET is blacklisted. But wait, it's easy to link to it, just pick the top hit: [13] Take that, blacklisters!

Seriously, links are not only used in articles: links that can't be used for articles may be used for discussion. To add a link to my Talk page here, should I ask for whitelisting? It might take a week (and would probably be denied).--Abd (talk) 04:18, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Just use "nowiki" tags around the link: http://www.newenergytimes.com/SR/Planktos/MyExperienceWithANobelPrizeWinner.htm --Enric Naval (talk) 23:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I've been doing it, though I've found something that's just a tad more convenient for the reader: do a google search on the filename, so far I've found that a lenr-canr.org or newenergytimes.com filename is often, first hit, on those sites. Then use the search as a link. If not, a little more specificity works. I also think that the domains included in a search don't trigger the blacklist. The blacklistings inhibit not only use in articles (where we definitely would not want an indirect link like that, guidelines suggest not using such in articles) but Talk and Wikipedia space, all spaces. The spam and blacklisting guidelines generally seem to be assuming article usage of links. I don't think the Mediawiki software for the blacklist allows distinguishing namespaces. The nowiki solution, though, isn't necessary. If I just write newenergytimes.com/SR/Planktos/MyExperienceWithANobelPrizeWinner, for example, you can copy that into modern browsers and they will supply the http://.

Take a look at whitelisting requests. It's not hard to find examples of what is arguably improper blacklisting, and, often, the requests are denied. Blacklisting is done even if no connection is shown between the alleged spammer and the blacklisted site. I still haven't seen evidence of linkspamming for newenergytimes.com. The argument appears to be that NET is allegedly fringe and therefore not usable. Because in the debates (that were raised because of my questioning of this, plus Durova filed a request on meta (not realizing that it wasn't a meta blacklisting for NET) Pcarbonn was mentioned, it seriously looks like the real reason is that NET published an article by Pcarbonn on Wikipedia; quite a good article, by the way, worth reading carefully. He was topic banned almost certainly because of that article, which allegedly established an intention to treat Wikipedia as a battleground. Ignored in all this is that the anti-fringe crowd -- and the blacklisters and antispammers -- very clearly treat WP as a battleground. Look at the image on Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam and the user page of MER-C, who raised the report that led to the blacklisting of lyrikline.org, a very interesting case. Evidence for linkspamming: a single user adds links to articles on poets who have permitted copies on lryiklink and audio of them reading. Regardless of -- and with no discussion of -- actual relevance and appropriateness, the user is blocked (even though behavior did not continue after warning), the links removed, and the domain meta blacklisted (because links were added in a number of wikis.) Now, the user is located in Berlin, and the most links were added to de. Users on de have gone to meta to request delisting. Denied, based on the alleged linkspamming. So de simply whitelisted the domain. Recently, a few days ago, one of our users went to de and removed a series of links, based on the spam charges. This user was warned, and an administrator (who is also admin here) reverted all the changes. The difference: they actually discussed the issue on de, the decision was made by other than the valiant warriors who man battleship anti-spam.

I could certainly pursue the individual case. However, that's not my inclination. Why clean up just one mess when there are hundreds of them, new ones being created all the time, and a subculture that creates and supports making these messes, and it would be more efficient to address this systemically?

Absolutely, the blacklist is a mediawiki extension that makes sense. If you look at the raw blacklist, most sites are obviously not appropriate, and there is true linkspamming where the blacklist is appropriate. However, the designers of the blacklist were aware how it could be abused to control content, and therefore the guidelines and procedures were written to prevent abuse. And those guidelines are being ignored by the admins who run it. Wikitheory would suggest that when an established user requests delisting or whitelisting, the default should be to grant it with little fuss. The reverse appears to be true. The burden of proof is on the whitelist requester, and the original blacklisting is cited as evidence the whitelisting shouldn't be granted. Blacklist admins are openly acknowledging that other issues besides linkspamming are being considered. That's very dangerous. Lyrikline.org is a clear case where multiple addition of links was presumed, with no further consideration, to be linkspamming. However, the guidelines suggest a higherlevel of linkspamming before blacklisting would be considered. What we see with lyrikline.org is that the very fact that a user added links to en and de (and a few other wikis) was considered sufficient proof of linkspamming. In the only case where this was directly considered by other than blacklist admins, the links were found to be legitimate, and they stand (with local whitelisting, since delisting on meta was denied). Now the evidence used to support blacklisting was the links, including the links on de. De decided that the links were legitimate. So legitimate links were used to support blacklisting. The links on en were the same, often the same subjects.

In the situation that first called my attention to the situation, the links actually used in articles to lenr-canr.org (and newenergytimes.com) were standing in articles; with Cold fusion certainly there was substantial support for these links, they were not only inserted by Pcarbonn. In fact, most of them weren't, and Pcarbonn seems to have removed links (all of them, I think) as a compromise with ScienceApologist or others. But links came back, from other editors. No link was removed by JzG, preparing to blacklist, that wasn't arguably legitimate. The evidence given in his blacklisting notice (he bypassed process, directly blacklisting, as an administrator, instead of requesting it) was alleged Rothwell linkspamming. But not one example of actual linkspamming was shown. Instead, Rothwell typically, as do many experts and COI editors, appends his title: "librarian, lenr-canr.org." not a link. Blacklisting is useless to prevent this. Citation of those edits, however, presented an appearance of linkspamming enough to convince the overworked and underpaid admins who run the local and meta blacklists. And then he tacked on the fringe and POV-pushing charges.

However, I will probably challenge a few individual blacklistings, because this will create the background for a broader solution. If I can't establish at least one improper blacklisting, then, the claim will surely be, that WP:IAR requires the blacklistings and the guidelines don't matter. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And this would be correct, if there weren't a substantial number of improper blacklistings taking place and if it were easy to undo damage. It is not easy. At all. Ask User:Enric Naval. He's requested three pages from lenr-canr.org be whitelisted. One was ultimately granted. Two have been denied, though in one case the denying admin then recused himself. We'll see what happens with that. There are only a very few admins who manage the blacklists (local or meta), and, big surprise, they tend to back each other up, instead of independently reviewing the listings. That may not be difficult to fix: just get some other admins involved, on request. --Abd (talk) 13:26, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't forget that you can also add "site:aaa.bbb" into a google search to restrict results to a specific domain to make the results really specific. For example, [14]. Alternatively, one could use a free url redirection service such as http://www.shorturl.com/ to create an alias for the sites, although this may be looked upon as evading the blacklist. I doubt that (1) they could even make a case that a Google search is evasion, and (2) that they will be willing to also blacklist www.google.com to enforce the blacklists on these sites.  :) --GoRight (talk) 00:50, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there is a snowball's chance that a link used in Talk as the above, for reasonably legitimate discussion, would be considered blacklist evasion (which isn't clearly an offense, anyway, but that's another story). Google searches are used quite frequently in Talk, as, for example, in AfDs, where search results can be used as evidence of notability sometimes. There are so many such links that blacklisting would be an enormous and disruptive effort. Could be done with bots, I suppose. Only if they can make blacklists space-specific, such as only applying to article space, could they manage to get away with blacklisting google. And blacklisting google from mainspace could make sense. But I don't think the software can do that. I should check. The shortcuts are typically blocked, such as tinyurl.com is blocked, I think. Obvious why.

This is the dirty little secret of the blacklist: if you read the blacklist guidelines, blacklisting is supposed to be a measure of last resort, after simple removal, warnings, blocks, and bot removal have failed. The guidelines aren't being followed, not even close. And one or more admins who run the blacklists/whitelists have acknowledged this, they consider it totally legitimate to add undocumented function, not a problem. I.e., the blacklist is designed for linkspam problems. But, hey, we can keep fringe advocacy web sites out with it, and we can decide that sites have copyright violations without any evidence of same, only lack of proof of permission as we deem necessary (not as copyright law deems necessary). Why not use it for that? Well, I can certainly say why, but it seems to escape those operating the blacklists. One admin, today, actually suggested that I assume good faith, as if I wasn't. He assumed I was ignorant of the history of a situation, when, from what he wrote and from what he's written on it in the past, he practically hasn't a clue, comparatively. I.e., every fact he alleged was true, I already knew it, but he'd neglected most of what I'd written and simply reasserted old arguments that I had answered. AGF isn't the same as assuming competent performance in all cases! I've been raising the matter of lyrikline.org, which is practically a textbook case of blacklist misuse. Turns out it is easy to find these. Just look through denied whitelist requests! (Those that came from ordinary registered editors, not site owners, though it seems that many site owner requests are also arguably legitimate. True spammers don't bother!) We'll see.

In one case, yesterday I think it was, I found that a site had been blacklisted because it was suspected that it might be used in linkspam, I'm not sure what the grounds were -- the evidence that is cited in the reports is less than transparent, there is a huge pile of data with little guidance as to where to look -- but when I questioned the denial of whitelisting from someone who requested it, an admin did look and went ahead and removed it from the blacklist. The system is not entirely broken, but ... it shouldn't be so hard. The blacklist is set up entirely for the convenience of linkspam fighters. And fighters they are. You know why Pcarbonn was blocked? Because he was alleged to have declared an intention to make Wikipedia a battleground, i.e., to violate WP:BATTLE. (Whether he did so or not is another matter.) Well, take a look at the current page for Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam. Picture of a battleship firing all guns, spectacularly, captioned "WikiProject Spam engaging spammers off the coast of Wikilandia.". User who identified the alleged lyrikline.org "spam" is User:MER-C. User page image: a nuclear explosion, captioned "Wikipedia disposes of another day's worth of vanity, spam, drivel and other rubbish." It could be dismissed as a joke, but ... these editors and adminstrators do deal with a high volume of trash, I think, and they come to see themselves as embattled, and then they see vandals and spammers and POV-pushers underneath every edit that doesn't fit what they expect. --Abd (talk) 03:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Beetstra began discussing here, in detail, some of the blacklisting issues I have raised elsewhere (and above here on my Talk); because he responds with important explanations and cogent apology for standing practice, I am moving this to the Talk page for a document I'm creating on the topic of blacklisting, User talk:Abd/Blacklist. Participation by all editors is welcome, provided the goal is to seek consensus. It is possible, at the outset, that all that is needed is better documentation, in the guidelines, of existing practice (which deviates rather widely from the guidelines); on the other hand, it is possible that better delisting and whitelisting review practices, involving independent editors and administrators from those who do blacklisting, could be a result, as an example. --Abd (talk) 14:17, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

All is well

I think. The issues seem to have more or less evaporated because of your help. It would seem that the parties involved made their points... many aspects were drawn out ... and some compromise was made... because of the facts, by both parties. I appreciate your help and insight and ability to overview the situation and make a neutral ground 'construct' for addressing the information. The article has regained its stability, at least in the usual existential nature of things Wikipedic. If I can be of help to you in the future let me know. Thanks. skip sievert (talk) 16:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

You know, both of you are to be credited with being willing to participate in a more patient process. What was really important was that both of you stepped back from edit warring, stepped back from the idea that the article had to be ideal, and right now. Then you could discuss more calmly, and in more detail, and, I'd say, the important element was that the goal of the conversation was to discover if consensus was possible. What could you agree on? In some disputes I see, it might be hard to get the parties to agree that today is Monday, so convinced are they that the other side is wrong. It's kind of hard to compromise with someone whom you believe is totally wrong, worse than a stopped clock, which is, after all, right twice a day. Anyway, you guys did it, I mostly just set up the space and watched. At some point, that discussion should be referenced in Talk for the article. Good luck. Indeed, I might need your help some day. Not everyone appreciates what I do here. --Abd (talk) 16:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Woop

There it is. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 06:05, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Obviously I disagree with that particular blacklisting, but could you please not accuse people of 'abusive blacklisting' etc. As you can see that approach hasn't work. And starting a crusade about debatable black-listings isn't going to get you anywhere with the arguably correct blacklisting you originally took issue with.--Misarxist (talk) 09:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Look, WP:SPADE. There are thousands of blacklistings, and I have only seen one incident where there was serious COI (technically, "involvement") by an administrator. However, "abuse" has two meanings: intention and effect. An action may have an abusive effect even if intended to help the project. I began with a concern about two blacklistings that were made totally out of process, by an administrator involved with Cold fusion, see User:Abd/JzG which was cited in an ArbComm RfAr raised by JzG and which did attract comment from reputable editors that involvement was clear and that JzG shouldn't be using tools (which includes adding entries to the blacklist) in related matters. However, in attempting to clean it up, I ran into entrenched opposition from blacklist administrators. There is a discussion at User talk:Abd/Blacklist, where two admins very involved in blacklisting process defend it. My comment about "abusive blacklisting" isn't intend to "win" some case. Indeed, if that were my goal, I wouldn't mention it. In the case of lyrikline.org, have you seen any comment from me that did other than assume good faith? If so, please let me know so I can redact it. However, the case page, User:Abd/Blacklist/lyrikline.org, shows clearly that the blacklisting process, and, even more seriously, the delisting and whitelisting process, is badly broken and violates guidelines. My goal is to fix it, so that both goals can be met: prevention of linkspam and improvement of articles.

Not one credible allegation was made in the whole process of blacklisting lyrikline.org that the links added harmed the project. One wiki, the home wiki, first wiki edited by the IP that later registered as Lyrik there and as User:Lyriker here, hosted the links for almost three years without incident. A few of the links were removed as inappropriate (and those are debatable, actually) but most of them were standing until the blacklisters took them out (or the burned user took them out). That wiki, http://de.wikipedia.org, whitelisted the entire site, and experienced no linkspam as a result. The blacklisting process is considering multiple additions of links to a site as by definition linkspam, and an editor who does this, no matter how reasonable the edits are, is treated as a spammer. That's abusive. And it has damaged the project.

I'm going to continue to document what happened. The case page has, so far, not examined more than two wikis; what seriously triggered the meta blacklisting was additions to many wikis, in many languages. I fully understand why linkspam was suspected, possibly sufficiently to justify blacklisting. However, editing to remove appropriate links, without a proper content consensus, was, in fact, vandalism, even though not so intended. Lyrikline.org is a notable web site, with material in many, many languages, see the article, Lyrikline.org. That links were added in many languages was very much to be expected, once someone realized that it could be appropriate to add them to articles on poets. Quite simply, Misarxist, you are not the only one to notice the usefulness of lyrikline.org, quite a few others have as well. They've asked for whitelisting a number of times, or for delisting. And it has been denied. Why? The major response has been to point to the original addition of links, as if the number of links was, all by itself, overwhelming proof of the necessity of blacklisting.

This is a serious error and a violation of blacklist guidelines, and it appears to represent a consensus of the active blacklisters. Cause for initial, perhaps "emergency" blacklisting has been confused with cause for continued blacklisting. This is the kind of thing that might end up at ArbComm. But I'm taking it one step at a time, hence the process at User talk:Abd/Blacklist. I'm first starting to find out what the consensus is, what I think would be sustained on broader examination, and what I think would not.

There was, in fact, no emergency. When warned, Lyrik immediately stopped. Blacklist guidelines suggest that blacklisting not be used unless lesser measures failed. Lesser measures didn't fail, but the process appears to have assumed that they would. After all, spammers don't give up, right? Spammers also argue that the links they added were legitimate. Spammers also use IP addresses to edit. Etc.

(In fact, the antispammers also edit using IP, because it's cumbersome to register on all the wikis. Lyrik wasn't going to register on a wiki just to add two links to articles on poets.) --Abd (talk) 14:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I apologise for the stupid 'crusade' comment. Sorry this is hurried, about to go to bed: Agree with the lyric thing, just I would prefer to call it a mistake & assume it would be better just to ask that the case be re-assessed on it's merits, as you say other people disagreed with that one, rather than going into the details of how the mistake happened. (Have asked someone on meta for clarification about the copyright thing, I don't think that holds water.)--Misarxist (talk) 15:08, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The problem, Misarxist, is that there are many such cases. I don't know how many, but the existing blacklist process is a setup for them to occur. Yes, I'd call it a mistake. But it's a mistake that is being repeated. And dealing with each individual mistake, when there is no process for doing so efficiently, will guarantee that mistakes will continue to be made. Now, it isn't exactly the blacklisting process that is the major problem, though there should be, perhaps, some tweaks to it to lessen damage. The problem is the delisting and whitelisting process, where the same administrators whose focus is preventing linkspam are making content decisions on behalf of the whole project (on meta, for every WMF wiki), with very low participation from anyone else. Those decisions are being made, often, with an argument that the blacklisting was legitimate; but the blacklisting process only looks, pretty much, at numbers of links added and how many editors are adding them and (for meta) on how many wikis. It's become very clear that actual content, actual appropriateness, isn't even being considered, until perhaps later, when someone asks for delisting. There is where the copyright issue was brought up, it wasn't an issue at all in the original blacklisting. And I've seen the same done with another listing: lenr-canr.org. Totally spurious, assumption of copyright violation even if such an assumption is preposterous for a highly visible, highly notable web site. In the case of lyrikline.org, if I'm correct, most or all material is submitted by the authors, plus being reviewed for acceptability and notability by the editors. In the case of lenr-canr.org, the site is an on-line library, with a complete bibliography on the topic of interest (low energy nuclear reactions or chemically assisted nuclear reactions, popularly known as Cold fusion, plus hosted copies of documents, where the site has been able to obtain permission from authors and publishers. Copyright violation was asserted over and over, but the only evidence of any weight at all was JzG's claim that he once asked for permission from elsevier, and it was denied (and perhaps the response was, from someone there, "we don't do that."). However, lenr-canr.org only hosts about one-third of the documents in the bibliography, and the site owner has said over and over, "I'd love to host them all, if only I could get permission."

No, the copyvio argument is CYA. I.e., a justification for continuing an action that was not based on it. In any case, linking unknowingly and without gross negligence to copyright violating material isn't a violation of copyright law. It's only willful linking that is illegal. Good thing. The guidelines say that occasional existence of copyvio material on a site should not prevent linking to it, it is only massive or blatant copyvio in the linked material that would be a problem. So the Goethe-Institut and the Berlin regional library and the former president, now vice-president of the Bundestag and UNESCO are supporting a violating site? Hardly likely, I'd say! --Abd (talk) 15:31, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

One more time...

...with feeling. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The talk page appears never to have been created. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 20:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Just wanted to make sure. --Abd (talk) 03:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Restored. This one also appears to have no talk page. Incidentally, are you finished with any of the ones that I've undeleted for you? All of your undeletion requests have been individually reasonable, but userspace isn't for creating private Deletionpedias and I'd feel better about these restorations if they were only sitting there for as long as you were actively using them for something. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 00:56, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

No, not finished with any of them that are still in my user space. Where there was a claim of spamvertising, I blanked the page, pending work on it, so that it wouldn't be indexed, etc. The kind of work I'm doing takes time, there are initiatives on many fronts. The pages are, in some cases, evidence for a report on how the blacklisting process works. Here is a status report:

User:Abd/Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments contains a lot of sourced detail on calorimetry and problems with it. My opinion is that consensus in the article itself will ultimately settle on a subarticle, because there is too much in reliable source and reasonable to include in the project, for the one article to support. I'm working on the cold fusion article in a number of ways, and will eventually get to the material in that article.

• Lyrikline.org was cleaned up and moved back into article space, this had been permitted by Hu12, the deleting admin, and he helped by whitelisting the link to the web site.

• User:Abd/TurnKey Linux is very current, I'm still figuring out if there is anything to do with it. Largely, I'm trying to rescue the author, who was rather roundly abused; however, he raised an important issue, which was drowned in the shouting: what are notability standards for articles on Open Source software? He pointed out that many, maybe most, articles in the field are as poorly sourced, in terms of general purpose RS, as was his. I don't think this article will need to be around long. My discussion with the author seems to have calmed him down and has led him to think that maybe not all is doom and gloom here, he seems to have understood my description of Wikipedia process. I hope I'm not leading him down the rosy path!

• User:Abd/ReadyLinks may have been improperly speedied. It was blacklisted, since last May, caught by a regex error. When someone, possibly someone affiliated with the company, requested whitelisting, so that links in the article could be fixed, the article was immediately deleted and the request denied. It was never spammed. I looked at the article in the google cache, and while it certainly wasn't a paragon of good content, it also had a little substance, and I found a reliable source that might be usable. While speedy deletion may have been appropriate, the tag appeared within minutes after the whitelisting was requested, and the article was then, within minutes, deleted. There wasn't any opportunity at all for anyone to request hang-on. While the article may indeed have been written by someone at the company, and there is a user who edited it, User:Readylinks, thus probable COI, I'm not convinced that an article which had been standing since 2006 should just disappear like that without at least some opportunity for editors to find independent sources. Beetstra suggested I could go to DRV. Sure. Weird. Is there a dispute? I don't know yet! It's deleted, undeletion was denied, my concern about the possibly punitive aspect of the deletion isn't relevant to the article's existence, so I'm certainly not ready to go to DRV! I'm stubbing the article, I'll see what I can find source for and consider, then, requesting that Hu12 permit return to article space. If not, then there would be DRV, of course. I won't even ask Hu12 if I don't think there is a chance of success at DRV.

• There are some older ones I should look at. I will. MKR (programming language), for example, is waiting for the author to find more sources. That could take quite a while. This was a case of abusive deletion process, but I considered it would have been disruptive to go to DRV. (It was AfD'd, survived, and was nominated the next day by ... a User:Fredrick day sock. An admin speedy closed, Fd reverted him, so he went, properly, to AN/I. Which is broken. Instead of another admin simply and quickly confirming the obvious, the article's notability became a subject of debate. Wrong forum! But in all the shouting, people piled in to !vote in the AfD, it seems to have attracted every deletionist in the place, and it was, of course, impossible to close it then. Some very long time wikipedians, from the very early days, voted to keep.... but out of personal knowledge, they knew the language, it's important, ... but only a little reliable source in the traditional sense. The field is almost entirely on the internet, discussion groups, etc. I found some reliable source, in fact. But there was so much shouting ... the process folks vs. the screw-process folks. Avoiding abusive renomination: wikilawyering! The chances of getting a good decision in that environment: low. As I recall, the !vote was about even. There wasn't any consensus for deletion. But there also wasn't any consensus for Keep. The admin made his own decision, to Delete. I'm pretty sure that DRV would simply have repeated the mess. So ... the author, pretty badly burned, was grateful that I offered to help him by having the article userfied and working with him on sourcing. I can't do much of the actual research, he knows the people in the field. I should contact him to see if he ever came up with anything. There were tantalizing possibilities.... There were also other users who offered to help, I should contact them..... too many irons in the fire, perhaps. That's the story of my life. Seven kids, with the first five, I had five teenagers at once. Now I have a five-year old and a seven-year old, and I'm 64 years old. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Anyway, thanks for the help. One of the reasons it goes slowly is that I'm not directly and immediately and urgently confronting issues that I find. I'm developing relationships with some of the involved people. But some of the blacklisters are touchy! I've had some off-wiki email with an admin who has served in some similar areas, and he described how one becomes suspicious of everything, it is easy to burn out. I see incivility as common, among those working to deal with spam. It's not necessary to be uncivil to deal effectively with spam! But it's sure easy to go there! And the attitudes that develop, that involve images of battle (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam, with the big guns blazing, and User:MER-C, with the nuclear detonation), talk about WP:BATTLE, cause collateral damage, as a user intending nothing but the improvement of the project gets called "spammer," is indef blocked without warning, on totally spurious grounds, and the web site which he thought would be so useful is blacklisted, and the article he created, on a site which has won major awards, is deleted. And, in fact, the only project which has whitelisted, has plenty of these links, just like what he was inserting. No abuse, apparently, they've been watching for it. There was practically no editorial opposition to these links. It was pure process run amok: user adds a lot of links to a web site, that is, by definition, for them, linkspamming, and leads to immediate blacklisting, and no questions at all are asked about the content. They don't care if the articles are all the same kind of article (in this case, poets) and probably the link is appropriate for every poet with a page at the web site, at least this could be argued. Let's see, we have an article now, let me look it up .... On its pages one can browse through and listen to about 4,700 poems by 470 poets in 49 languages. The site has a biblography and a biography for each poet, plus audio contributed by the poet, with the text in the original language and translated into certain other languages, which can be read in parallel, I think.

Now, perhaps blacklisting was appropriate, to slow things down. I can accept that argument. Problem is, when delisting was requested, the original additions, by now a year old, are cited as reasons to keep the site blacklisted. And when whitelisting is requested, it is denied as "unnecessary," with statements that show a belief that external links are basically undesirable. Yet lyrikline.org, for articles on hosted poets -- where it would be reliable source for biography, etc., it's edited and responsible and does not accept contributions automatically -- meets the description of desirable external links in WP:EXT, high-quality content which is useful but which can't be brought onto Wikipedia. I've concluded that the basic structural problem is that blacklisting should be separated from delisting and whitelisting, the same set of admins shouldn't be running both. Blacklisting was not intended to be used the way it's being used, they aren't following the guidelines, and that's openly acknowledged by them as a good thing. But they don't change the guidelines to reflect actual practice, and I've got a strong suspicion that this is because they know what would happen. The community would not accept what they are doing.

When I started working on this, I was warned about eating worms. I got private comments from admins that this was going to be difficult. Actually, so far, it hasn't been. That's because I'm not screaming "cabal," I'm not going to DRV, I'm not going to AN or AN/I, I'm just gathering evidence and examples and trying to clean up a tiny fraction of the messes being created.

Note that there being a big mess doesn't mean that the blacklisting itself is wrong, only that the mechanisms for fixing errors either don't exist or are broken. What's needed may be a very small tweak. This is not about blaming the volunteers who work hard to protect Wikipedia from spam and other inappropriate contgent. In fact, if I do my work right, it will get a little easier. But they don't know that yet. --Abd (talk) 02:00, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've no desire to involve myself in blacklist wars, and as long as you tell me that it's all still serving a purpose I'll take your word for it. I'm happy to do more undeletions, too. But if you'd tag them for speedying (or just let me know) when you are done with them, I'd appreciate it. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 02:16, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm trying to stop the blacklist wars, by the way. Yes, I'll tag them when done. What tag should I use for a deleted article that was userified? Shouldn't they be moved back to article space before being deleted, so that the history is sitting in the right place? Don't know, just asking.... --Abd (talk) 02:29, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Hu12

Hi, the comments about Hu12's bereavement relate to a previous incident when he failed to communicate with editors about his blacklisting decisions. It was raised in that thread by an admin who presented a highly misleading summary of the events, apparently with the aim of undermining my (originally very small) input to the current thread. DuncanHill (talk) 23:15, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

My advice, Duncan, is to let it go. It's actually irrelevant. (For others, this is with reference to a report on AN/I, one of my very rare filings there, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Repetitive_removal_of_discussion_by_Hu12_on_MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist.)

I should explain this a bit. In dealing with these blacklistings over the last few weeks, I've seen barrages of arguments presented, which arguments include "highly misleading summaries of events." Often one set of events are conflated with others, assumptions are made -- and not of good faith! -- and, in the other direction, assumptions are made defending administrative actions that simply fly in the face of the facts. Everyone can make mistakes. It's great that we defend each other, but defending the mistakes of friends is a Bad Idea, it can actually harm them seriously. Friends of Physchim62 and User:Tango defended them, and this may have encouraged them to "stick to their guns," when they had actually blown it, violated basic standards for administrators (use of tools when involved), and the result was a couple of bitter ex-administrators. True friends, in my opinion, tell you when you've made a mistake. In any case, an aim of undermining your input would be close to bad faith, if not actually there. On the other hand, my experience and expectation, the admin probably believed his or her own "highly misleading summary." Hence, to that admin, the admin was simply countering your "bad arguments" with the "Truth"(TM). People who deliberately lie in such complex ways are not very common. Attack someone, they will defend themselves and may play fast an loose with the truth. But it's rather silly on a wiki where the History is generally quite open. Still, some do it, and often the true history is lost in the noise. And then comes along someone like me who doesn't trust his own memory and opinions and who will actually look at those old conversations....

Anyway, thanks for dropping by, welcome any time. Have some tea or coffee. Cream?

Look, if Hu12 is not communicating about blacklisting decisions, they can and perhaps should be undone. That's all. But for some odd reason, and with rare exceptions, no matter how much evidence is presented that a blacklisting wasn't necessary, the conclusion seems to be that delisting isn't necessary. Maybe with the work invested in finding the links and removing them, they don't want it wasted? So when I encountered this situation, and realized the dimensions of it, I began to look around and to gather evidence, not to scream and yell. However, along the way, I found stuff. The block of User:Lyriker, for example. Why was this user blocked? Why was Lyrikline.org deleted?

Just the other day, I found a whitelist request for ready-links.com. Sounds like some spam web site, right? Not. Company makes networking equipment. Within minutes of the whitelist request, from a clueless SPA quite possibly connected with the company, the article on the company, ReadyLinks which had been around for years (and which was the fluff that used to be more common, what we might expect would be created by someone from the company who didn't have the foggiest), was tagged for speedy deletion and was actually deleted by, guess who? This SPA had come because the article contained blacklisted links and thus could not be edited, and so he was asking for help. Whack!

Now, why was ready-links.com blacklisted? Well, Hu12 was dealing with a report, last year, on a massive user page linkspammer. (I appreciate what these people do, and it's unfortunate that a couple of the involved admins seem to think that I'm attacking them and the process, I hope they will get over that.) One of the spammed URLs was links.links.com. Hu12 added the regex code \blinks\.com\b, if I remember it right, which will catch links.com but also sites with [anything]-links.com. I saw this in another report on the page, where we whitelisted such a similar site because of the error. But it really was an error, not merely a not-ideal expression. The site to be blacklisted wasn't links.com, it was links.links.com. That site is dead, probably removed by links.com as a spam site. The whole listing should just be removed, it's doing no good, and it is doing some harm. I've userfied the article at User:Abd/ReadyLinks so it can be cleaned up, and I'll move it back when appropriate, and then let normal process take over. I don't think it was a proper speedy candidate, but I'm also not sure of its notability. (I'm an inclusionist, and would probably want to include it with respect to anything that could be verified, but that's another matter.)

There will be a report on this particular incident at User:Abd/Blacklist/ready-links.com, joining other reports that will be detail pages for an overall report on the blacklisting situation, with recommendations as to how to fix it. This will be my report, I'll be personally responsible for it, that's why it's in my user space, it is not a totally open community process, though at the outset, everyone is invited to help. Whatever consensus appears there binds nobody, makes no decisions, and only advises those who choose to be advised by it. The report will then, perhaps, become a basis to suggest edits to the relevant guidelines, or, if that's resisted inappropriately, an RfC or further process.

Until I started this, there were only isolated anecdotes; many users (and administrators) reported to me problems with the blacklists, but it was all too diffuse. By beginning to compile this, by discussing it with administrators involved in the blacklisting (and at least three have been reasonably friendly and cooperative), I've been able to come to an understanding of how we might proceed, and it is really pretty simple: separate the blacklisting and delisting/whitelisting processes. Consider it conflict of interest for an admin to work heavily blacklisting sites and then for the same admin to deny delisting requests. This is a little tighter than present COI standards, which would only prevent -- if applied, they weren't being applied -- the same admin from blacklisting a particular site and then denying delisting for the same site. The blacklisters are specialized, they use special tools, their process is arcane and relatively difficult to penetrate. And then when someone requests delisting, they simply toss a pile of nearly incomprehensible evidence, typically having nothing to do with content, on the editor's head, and say, "See?" No, they shouldn't be handling delisting at all, unless it's just to review consensus from another page and implement it, or to grant applications made personally to them as a blacklisting admin. (And when they deny such, they would properly refer the editor to the open process, without prejudice.)

The objection has been made (showing that the proposal hasn't been understood) that there aren't enough administrators to handle the existing load, already, but that assumes that delisting must be expeditious. It should be simple, and reasonably quick, but quick and almost automatic No isn't very useful. Rather, let the blacklisters handle blacklisting, and only require certain standards for that, which should be better documented, not to remove WP:IAR flexibility, but to simplify decision-making for the bulk of cases, and avoid contention and conflict. Let blacklisting be relatively easy, but let it involve no content decisions, unless they are obvious and clearly non-contentious ones. Someone is adding 20 links an hour. Blacklist immediately, no fuss, and report next. Don't call the editor a spammer, unless it is totally blatant (which does require consideration of content), but warn the editor that massive addition of links without established consensus could result in a block. And if the editor continues, block the editor briefly, with very polite apologies for the inconvenience and instructions on how to appeal. Let the blacklist notice give better instructions as to how to appeal a blacklisting, and make it easy, but at the same time, make it efficient. Don't require administrators to make the closing decisions, rather, let experienced editors do it (same as actually can be done with AfDs for Keep closes, User:Kim Bruning showed me that trick.) By offloading delisting requests from the blacklisters, they can be freer to work on their specialty, but then the peculiar POV that arises among those who see way too much spam -- many have reported this to me who have been there, done that -- isn't involved in making content decisions.

The delisting and whitelisting pages would be semiprotected. There would be instructions for IP and new editors how to find an autoconfirmed editor to help them by making the request on their behalf (i.e., by convincing the regular editor that something should be done). Thus we start to use the distributed power of the community to better deal with the issue. And if there aren't enough volunteers there, well, stuff doesn't happen. *It doesn't stop the blacklisters*. And nobody can blame them, in such a case. They'd be doing their job, which would be a bit better defined.

More tea or coffee? Need to get home? Or can you stay a while? Any time, come by. Sorry if I talked your ear off, but, I assure you, I'll listen to whatever you say in reply. --Abd (talk) 00:07, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, just so long as you know that you will be personally attacked and lied about by certain admins if you do question what they or certain others do - but I think you realised that long ago! Best wishes, DuncanHill (talk) 01:08, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I find it fascinating, I first observed this as a participant and conference moderator on the The WELL in roughly 1987: everything was recorded. It should be quite difficult to lie about what people have done. But some do it anyway, and, what's amazing, they get away with it, because most people won't look! It takes patient deconstruction and careful examination of each statement, in a organized way, to get beyond this, unless, I suppose, one is, oneself, a genius at manipulating how people think. Which is exactly what I don't want to do. Now, given this phenomenon, there is a parallel realization. Given that others are so easily deceived by what they expect and what they want to see (i.e, their friend is right, their enemy is wrong), it can follow that the "liars" are themselves deceived. That is, they are simply remembering selectively what happened, or mistaking their impressions for their experience. Joe wrote "X" is replaced with "Joe wrote a nasty insult." That is, the emotional effect is substituted for the accurate memory of experience, and then detailed memory is altered to match the emotional effect. Occasionally, I've seen people actually look back and the record and say, "That's not how I remembered it, I'm embarrassed at what I said about it." But it's rare.

The AN/I report on JzG has been rapidly closed without the issue raised being addressed. It was about edit warring, period. Content wasn't the issue, and I did not go there to seek support for a content position, nor did I intend -- nor did I -- to revert further no matter what. However, editors saw the report as being, not about edit warring, but about trying to get admin support for a content position, which, of course, would be reprehensible (to me, as it was for others). Spartaz closed with a comment that showed he fell for the content distraction. Which left the question, "Is it legitimate and acceptable to push a content position with six removals of the same content, unsupported by any other editor, against multiple editors asserting a different position." I know the answer from policy. It isn't. So, the way I put it toward the end, "Does JzG have a Get Out of Jail Free Card, or should we MfD WP:EDITWAR or is what he did not edit warring?" Remarkably, JzG asserted that what I did was edit warring, though I'd reverted twice in about two weeks, whereas he removed the content six times, including 3 removals in one day. I warned him at four removals, he reverted again and I went to AN/I, and then he reverted again while the discussion was under way.

He *does* have a Get Out of Jail Free card. I'm positive that if I did this, I'd be blocked in a flash. So would almost every editor. However, see, WP:DR has not been exhausted. The next step is a little more difficult: is there another editor who would attempt to resolve this dispute and who, if it fails, would cosponsor an RfC? I know admins who have a very low opinion of JzG's behavior, but they don't want to get involved, and I don't blame them. He's played that GOOJF card successfully many times. He knows how to distract, in a crowd. And, again, I don't have the opinion that he's being deliberately deceptive.

If this gets to ArbComm, though, it won't go as he might expect. He has treated his last foray before ArbComm, it's mentioned in the present AN/I report that I filed, as some kind of "victory," when, in fact, ArbComm more or less chastised him for premature filing of a request, plus a number of editors chided him for use of tools while involved. Respected editors.

By the way, I have a page, User:Abd/Notices where I post occasional pointers to what I think are significant activities. I've suggested to users interested in what I'm doing to watch that page. It has a detached, redirected Talk page, so, if it works properly and someone doesn't interfere with it, only posts to that page will show up in a watchlist, and those are only to be made by me. (All other posts to that page should be reverted.) Watching my contributions would drive almost anyone nuts. My Talk page is bad enough. --Abd (talk) 01:46, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Arguing with JzG, again

I see JzG is now treating you the same way he treats me, even though you've avoided some of the excesses of my own style, and even taken me to task a bit for them. Of course, Guy is always right about everything, everywhere, all of the time, and no discussion is ever needed; insisting on conducting a discussion about any of the things Guy is always right about is evidence you're a troll, and the proper response is to throw out the discussion with the rest of the trash. *Dan T.* (talk) 00:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

A record is accumulating. Let's put it this way: I'd agree that it looks like what you say. And I could support that with diffs. And I just might need to do that. It depends on whether or not anyone else has the fortitude to participate, because, at this point, if I proceed alone, I'd be dead meat. And, in fact, I'd deserve it. See, there is this little thing called "consensus," and it begins with two people. Insisting on discussing a thing in a deliberative assembly, when there is no second, will get you tossed out. As, again, it should.

Is there a second?

If not, the motion fails for lack of a second.

Dan, you warned me at the outset that I'd be learning to eat worms, or something like that. It's not true, actually, for I have taken WP:DGAF to heart, and don't expect rational response from crowds. And I know how to move beyond that, in fact, but it takes time.

Let me put it this way. The last ArbComm election put two of the best editors I've known on ArbComm. I've consulted privately with them before the election, and I know how they think, and it is deep and they do understand what is going on. I have not and will not call upon them, but I also have some idea of what will happen if matters go to ArbComm. And if it doesn't, well, WP:DGAF doesn't have an expiration date. And I have no opinion that I'm better off editing Wikipedia than not. I'm here to improve the project, but if the project doesn't want me, well, it won't be like I've never experienced that before. I will say this, though. I've been cast out more than once, from organizations, a nonprofit board, and mailing lists. And in every case, those projects failed. It wasn't that I was essential, it is that what cast me out was destructive or created rigidity (alternate dangers). Socrates. User:Abd/Rule 0. Societies that can't tolerate people like me cannot change, cannot adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. Wikipedia is at a dangerous turning point; it's become very conservative, even small changes that clearly have the potential to solve major problems are strongly resisted, such as Flagged Revisions. Delegable proxy would allow, if implemented -- and it can be done one person at a time, without any change to policies or procedures until and unless there is consensus to make the change -- intelligent and filtered structure to arise that would balance the participation bias that afflicts our process, that would allow rapid response with consensus on a large scale. For starters, it would be trivial, if proxy designations became routine, to form a Wikipedia Assembly, which a number of members of ArbComm have seen as necessary to deal with content issues and to otherwise form a way for the community to deliberate. DP would allow a standing assembly to be created without elections and with maximized representation.

But the editor who proposed it was promptly blocked for disruption. Now, he was erratic, for sure, given to impulsive action. But, in fact, it's people like him (probably with ADHD) who have the capacity to see beyond the standard limits. He got it, or, more accurately, he got pieces of it. Proxies in the context of Wikipedia would not have "voting rights." They would not be voting on behalf of people who have named them. But if they do participate in some process, and the !vote, it becomes possible to estimate the "extended support" for a position; this assumes that people name as proxy someone they trust.

There is an obvious objection: sock puppets. Except my friend proved that this objection was false. When he named me as his proxy, both of us were immediately the subject of an SSP report and were checkusered. It was preposterous, actually, but this is the fact: a sock puppet would never name the puppet master. For the sock and master to be directly and easily connected is the last thing a puppet master wants. Like a big red flag. Suspect something is off about a sock account? Look first at the proxy of the sock. Or vice versa (i.e, the client of the sock). Further, since we don't !vote, in fact, numbers don't count unless an analyst wants to look at them, multiplying sock puppets doesn't multiply cogent arguments. It would just create "me too" !votes, and I think they would stand out like a sore thumb. I'm sure small numbers would happen, but large-scale manipulation, not. However, WP:PRX wasn't about setting up some binding system, or even anything that required people who did not participate to do anything, nor would it have deprived anyone of participation rights. It simply would have set up a proxy table and structure.

And this is the secret, right here for everyone to read: it doesn't need community approval, and there is no way for the community to prevent it or stop it. The only thing that prevents it is that people don't do it. They don't believe it will do any good, so they don't do anything toward creating the structure. Which would, if needed, be created off-wiki. It already exists informally.

I've been working on this since the 1980s. I know what the obstacles are. It will simply take time, and it doesn't depend on me. The structural concept was invented in about a half-dozen different places around the world, at roughly the same time. I've got a limited lifespan, and I have prostate cancer, though it is stage I and I may never seen symptoms before I die, i.e, I'm quite likely to die from other causes instead of that. And I think I'm likely to see the first applications before I move on, because I know how it works, how to get there, and see that happening, one piece at a time. Will it arrive in time to help Wikipedia? That I don't know. I just happen to be here now, and I do what I can. Recent changes is fun. Dealing with adminicrap isn't, I do that because once I see something that others don't see -- because it's hard to see this stuff, it takes lots of time and careful research -- I'm obligated, it's a basic principle of Islam and, yes, the vandal is right. I'm a Muslim. He adds other colorful words, but he's at least half-right.

(Muslim? What's that? Well, look into the word and the origin and it means someone who surrenders to Truth no matter what the personal opinion or affiliation is. It means believing that one does not own the Truth, the situation is the reverse, and Abd means "slave." If I think that my opinion is "the Truth"(TM), I've got it all backwards. I *hope* my opinion is affected by the Truth, but I also know that I'm a human being and we have, shall we say, tendencies toward blindness, when it comes to our own shortcomings. Now, can you perhaps understand why I'd be interested in NPOV? NPOV isn't my opinion, I don't own it and can't claim it, and the way I recognize it is through consensus. Basic foundation of Islamic law, the part that most non-Muslims and a whole boatload of Muslims don't know about Islam: consensus is the foundation of sound practice. Not doctrine, rules, abstractions. Agreement, and especially the agreement of the informed.)

Ahem, where were we? Thanks for dropping by. Did I offer you any tea or coffee? Because of the prostate cancer, I only have half-and-half and heavy cream here. I do have some sugar, though, because my kids don't abstain from it, and I have sucralose, what's your pleasure. Wikipedia? I wouldn't worry about it. The only way I can be hurt by it is if I obsess about it, spend too much time here, and neglect my kids, who do need me. I should put up some pictures. Chinese daughter, 7 years old. Ethiopian daughter, 5 years old. I also have five grown children and five grandchildren who are, all but one, older than my youngest daughters.

There is a scene at the end of Blade Runner where the android who is dying tells about what he has seen. That's how I feel; not about dying, but about living. If I could tell you what I've seen.... in fact, though, I can't. You have to see it for yourself, that's what we are here for.--Abd (talk) 02:28, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Have you ever read The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith? Your proxy voting system reminds me of the "Gallatinist" assembly that exists in the alternate universe of that book, as the central assembly of the vestigial government that still exists in a mostly anarcho-capitalist world; it's the manner in which the society takes collective action on the extremely rare occasions when such is necessary. As for your being a Muslim... well, you certainly seem to have a very different attitude from some of your co-religionists, whose adherence to absolute rules is such that they demand death for those who make the most minor transgressions. *Dan T.* (talk) 03:17, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

No, haven't read it, but it's been pointed out to me that there are some similar concepts there. The people who have been most receptive to the delegable proxy concepts have typically been libertarians; my complete concept is called FA/DP, i.e., Free Associations with Delegable Proxy. FAs are purely voluntary organizations that do not centralize power *at all*. Example is Alcoholics Anonymous, founded and designed largely by Bill Wilson, who studied the matter and figured out how to create a massively decentralized organization that was nevertheless coherent, and which was astonishingly successful, where many prior efforts had failed. Add DP to this, and the large-scale part of it becomes self-organizing and efficient. AA does so little on a large scale that a supermajority-elected delegate assembly worked well enough. Delegable proxy resembles Asset voting, which was first described by Lewis Carroll in something like 1884. Wikipedia could use Asset Voting if it wanted to create a peer assembly, where every member has the same voting power, and where there aren't ordinary elections, i.e., representation through contest, but rather though choice and cooperation. (If there are fifty seats, and your "faction" has only 1% of the vote, you've got to make some compromise, but *you* make it, not some majority vote. I.e., you choose whom to cooperate with.) Then, take an Asset Assembly, *and allow direct voting.* To do this, votes must be known, it can't be done with secret ballot, at least not totally. Whenever someone votes directly, this vote is subtracted, proportionally, from the votes of the seat holder who was carrying the vote of the person. In a secret ballot system there are two layers: people vote secretly for "candidates," and then the candidates become electors, holding the votes of so many people who voted for them, and the candidates then treat these votes as "their personal property," in Carroll's language, and reassign them to create seats. Because these electors are public voters, they can then vote directly in final decisions if they wish to. If they choose well, they usually won't have to! Those who didn't declare themselves as candidates and therefore didn't get any votes can't recast their votes until the next general election. In a relatively open and free system, anyone can declare themselves as a candidate and vote for themselves and thus become an elector who can then vote publicly. (They can then reassign their votes as any candidate can, but might retain the right to vote directly when they choose to do so.)

But, I think this idea/principle is original with me: deliberation and voting are separated. The problem of scale is one of deliberation, which breaks down when the scale is large. If deliberation is public, though, the arguments against direct democracy fail, largely, because those who vote directly can become as informed as they choose. What they can't do, if they don't hold a seat, is *deliberate,* i.e., take up everyone's time or fill up the record with their reams of text like I do. That's where direct democracy becomes a problem, the problem isn't with voting, but most who have written on the subject have assumed that deliberative rights and voting rights were inseparable. And this is where traditional political science got trapped into thinking that the problem of democracy was basically insoluble. In my conception, voting is about consent. In a proxy system, I would normally have the right to vote, and if I don't, I consent to what happens. My proxy, whom I freely choose -- nobody is required to name a proxy -- is likely to vote similarly to me, if I've chosen well, or may vote better than I will, because of being better informed, wiser, etc. Who would you prefer to represent you, a robot who votes the way you want, or an intelligent person who will vote their own best conclusion, having been chosen by you freely and without constraint? Some answer the robot, but I sure wouldn't prefer that!

How does this apply to Wikipedia? Wikipedia uses a distributed decision-making model, it works quite well, as I would have expected, but it breaks down under some circumstances, which mostly have to do with local consensus vs. true general consensus. Local consensus is warped by participation bias. Delegable proxy provides a means to possibly extrapolate from votes to a more general level of consensus, but the decision-making model I would have remain the same: decisions are made by individuals, as advised by discussion. And the individual making the decision is responsible for it, and has volunteered to implement it. However, as a circle of discussion becomes wider, more and more, the weight of the community counts. At a Wikipedia Assembly level, true voting would be done; however, I'd still leave the situation that the Assembly is advisory only. It simply advises on a large scale. That's what FA/DP organizations do: they only advise or lead, they do not control. Have you noticed that ArbComm has no direct power, it merely advises? It advises editors and it advises Jimbo and the Foundation, who choose to respect the advice or not. ArbComm only has power, functionally, because editors, and especially administrators, choose to respect it. The administrators could take a wikibreak and nothing could be done to enforce a decision. The editors could decide to stop editing, stop recent changes patrolling, whatever, and nobody could force them to take it up. It's a big FA, in reality, but people don't realize it.

Delegable proxy in such a situation would create networks of trust that would allow groups so connected to rapidly develop internal consensus, and thus to negotiate broader consensus with actual participation by only a few editors. [[WP}PRX]] was called an "experiment." It designed a proxy assignment file format and a central proxy table that would collect the proxy information through transclusion. It was actually too complicated, there was a simpler form that I proposed that would allow anyone to set up a proxy table instead of depending on one central table (which makes the whole system vulnerable to vandalism and other problems.) Very deliberately, it avoided any suggestion of !voting, but enemies appeared immediately who assumed that it involved voting and who tried to get the whole idea deleted. Not just "rejected," but actually deleted. Boy did it touch some nerve! I wasn't surprised, but my friend was, it seriously upset him, and he lost it.

It was all pretty silly. Not to propose it, but to get upset about it and to oppose it so strongly. It wasn't going to happen, not yet. Slogan for beyondpolitics.org: Lift a Finger, Save the World. But Most People Won't Lift a Finger.

Why not? Well, because they don't believe that it's possible. Some really object to that slogan, they say that people work hard to change things for the better, and certainly they do. But what if there was something really, really easy that would "save the world?" Would people do it? What I say is that, no, they wouldn't, unless somehow they come to think something like Nasruddin putting yoghurt in the lake.

Nasruddin was seen by his friend pouring some yoghurt in the lake. "Why are you doing that," the friend asked. "I'm trying to turn the lake into yoghurt." "But," the friend protested, "You can't turn the lake into yoghurt, yoghurt is made from milk, and the lake is water." "Yes, I know that," Nasruddin replied, "But, just think! What if it works?"

It might help to know that in traditional Islamic symbology, milk is a symbol for knowledge. What if the lake is actually ready to be changed? How would we know? The only way, probably, would be to pour a little yoghurt in and see what happens. Seed the structure, see if it crystallizes. What I see is that we are approaching something like a saturated liquid, maybe even supersaturated. These ideas are popping up all over, but, so far, no seed crystal of sufficient size has appeared; until it does, the random chaotic motion of people breaks apart the connections, they don't persist or operate reliably enough. But once there is a demonstration of these ideas working, it will be imitated, if it works. "Works" means that it operates effectively and efficiently to facilitate communication, cooperation, and coordination on a large scale. There are plenty of elements here and there; for example, there is Moveon.org; but they don't have the truly open membership that an FA has that would allow it to generate large-scale consensus rather than consensus within a defined faction. FA's don't take controversial positions as an FA. They exist for the purpose of facilitating and expressing consensus, but not enforcing it or even making it official (though in AA, there are publications that represent very broad consensus; but any member of AA is totally free to disagree with anything in the publications, and only if their *behavior* threatens the functional unity of the group -- which is absolutely not about dogma -- would there be some action against it. That almost never happens on a large scale, AA has no blacklist of people not allowed to attend or participate in meetings, but individual meetings can and do make their own decisions. Exclusion is rare, but it happens. AA deals with some very, very dysfunctional people!)

Ahem! more coffee? I've had enough for tonight. Obviously! --Abd (talk) 04:18, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Uninvolved question: For my own education / curiosity

• Hi Abd. I happened to come across your ANI thread about reversions by JzG in Cold Fusion. I sincerely don't want to get involved in this issue, but I am trying to understand the situation a bit better for my own curiosity and education: please can I clarify 1 or 2 things if you get some time? Firstly, you say that the reverted source was whitelisted. Does this mean that some kind of community approval for the source was granted, kind of like an authorisation to use the source? If so my understanding would be that you should not be able to remove this reference without removing the whitelisting, and in all sincerity at face value this would put JzG way out of line for reverting it over and over again if he understood the whitelisting and as an admin he should know better. So if my understanding is correct up to this point, I don't understand why this was dismissed on ANI. My next question would be: are you satisfied that your ANI was resolved correctly? Or conversely do you see this as another failure of our admins? (Just so we can all get a nice status check on Wikipedia's health). Rfwoolf (talk) 03:55, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The dysfunction of AN/I is well known, the editor who started it, if I'm correct, later concluded that it was a mistake. In this case, I went there with a specific behavioral problem, not a content issue, but, as I've seen happen before -- see User:Abd/MKR incident -- the attention of those participating was turned to the content issue, which AN/I is not supposed to resolve. If it's not supposed to resolve that, why did so many editors address content? And then I was accused of trying to get support for a content position, which was surely stupid if that had been my intention. The closing admin did not address the actual issue raised, nor did most of those who commented. I eventually said, "Assume that JzG is right about the content, that the link shouldn't be there. Does this, then, justify his use of repeated reversion to assert this position?" I asked this question very, very clearly, several times, and it wasn't answered. No problem, the question will be asked again, until it finds an answer, not just distraction and misdirection, whether deliberate or not. Some think it's deliberate, skillful manipulation, but I think, probably not. It's just the way crowds work when they think their ox is being gored. Because of his popularity among some very active Wikipedians, JzG does appear to have a Get Out Of Jail Card Free card. But the problems of this are burbling up; and if this goes to ArbComm, it won't be pretty. With very little exposure, there has already been some substantial comment from some very substantial editors that JzG has been acting in violation of restrictions on administrators, and recognition that he is too involved, too attached to a particular POV. I wasn't intending to pursue this with any fervor at all, but was proceeding very slowly, mostly working on identifing the problems with the blacklisting process, when this edit warring popped up. It was a clear violation of WP:EDITWAR, just not of the bright-line WP:3RR, and it was a continuation of a long pattern of similar removals. So I decided to ask AN/I about it. Testing the water, you might call it, though certainly not just to make a point. I really didn't know what would happen, and it could depend on the luck of the draw, i.e., who happens along when the discussion is first open.

Now, about the blacklist and whitelist. There is a blacklist here, and a global blacklist on meta. The local blacklist prevents any user from adding a link to a blacklisted URL to any place on Wikipedia. For example, try to link to http://lenr-canr.og, in an edit, you will see what happens. The only reason that I could save this edit is that I surrounded the URL with nowiki tags that make it into plain text instead of a link. JzG blacklisted the site, himself, without discussion and without logging it, lenr-canr.org. See User:Abd/JzG for a history of his involvement with Cold fusion and his admin actions taken with respect to it and users involved with it. When this was challenged here, first on his Talk page and then on the blacklist page, he went to meta and requested global blacklisting there, not informing them of the discussion here or notifying us of the request there. It was granted: he is a routine volunteer with the blacklisting operations, and he is trusted. And once blacklisting is granted, it is like pulling teeth to get something off the list, if it is at all marginal, for whatever reason. He asserted linkspamming (actually false, it didn't happen, what was presented as evidence of linkspamming wasn't links and blacklisting didn't prevent it from happening later), copyright violation (apparently purely false), and fringe (perhaps, but irrelevant, the blacklist wasn't designed to be used for content control), and a few other charges.

Now, once a site is globally blacklisted, or locally blacklisted, *specific links* can be whitelisted locally. One goes to the MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist and requests whitelisting. For global blacklisting, any individual language wiki can decide to whitelist the entire site, so the global blacklist is moot for that site, locally. For a local blacklist, that would be silly, since the response properly would be to delist, not to whitelist. However, in this case, local whitelisting of the whole site is impractical, because of the farrago of reasons given that the site is totally unusable; the argument will be (and was) made that one can always whitelist a link if it's needed. So User:Enric Naval not a POV-pusher, went to the whitelist page and requested whitelisting for a specific paper that is hosted at lenr-canr.org. After the issues were considered, and after considerable delay, that page was whitelisted by Beetstra. But when Enric added the link, JzG, who had removed it in the first place, then blacklisted, making it impossible to revert his edit, removed it again. And again, and again, and again, and then again after the AN/I report was filed, all the while claiming that *I* was edit warring, even though I only reverted twice, a week apart, with extensive discussion, and the second time just before going to AN/I and reporting the problem. Enric Naval reverted three times, and JzG, six. It's quite plain: he's got something serious against allowing any links to lenr-canr.org; he often refers to Rothwell, the site manager, and may have some personal issue there. However, the article isn't referencing lenr-canr.org, it is -- or was -- referencing a publication of conference proceedings by Tsinghua University, and lenr-canr.org just happens to be hosting a copy of the paper with permission from the author and publisher. So the reliability of lenr-canr.org should be moot, they are not the source, just a place where the source can be read, as an isolated page, without editorial comment or other possible fringe advocacy not present in the source itself.

Frustrating, perhaps, perhaps not. I'm not attached to any piece of content, you win some, you lose some, and what seems like a win today, we might realize tomorrow was a loss, and vice-versa. JzG isn't the problem. The problem is process, or, more specifically, missing process, incomplete guidelines, undocumented but common practices that have never been broadly considered but which are followed by a small group of tightly cooperating adminstrators, etc. I actually don't think it will be difficult to fix the process problems, at least some of them, and there are admins working with me to this end. From my point of view, I'm being quite successful. But it's a slow process. Was I satisfied with the result at AN/I? No, but I was very satisfied something like the day before, when I went to AN/I with a problem with Hu12. Hu12 isn't as popular or well-known as JzG, and the offense of Hu12 was simple and blatant: he removed a comment of mine from a closed discussion on the local blacklist page, I think it was. (You can find links to current incidents that I consider might be of general interest at User:Abd/Notices. I keep traffic there way down, unless someone vandalizes it!) Was I surprised with the JzG result? Again, no, but I also couldn't have predicted it with any reliability. The open question, for me, is when the community will be ready to confront repeated and serious violations of policy by JzG, this isn't the first example. The evidence is accumulating, this is a wiki, and history is maintained. There is already User:Abd/JzG, prepared as an evidence page for an Arbitration request filed by JzG, and used there, and commented upon by some heavyweights, which makes it difficult to get it MfD'd, as would surely otherwise be done. There is the evidence about edit warring presented in the AN/I report just closed, that can't be deleted without causing a lot of attention to be drawn to it. And so forth. The wheels of wikijustice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.

I couldn't be doing what I'm doing without some degree of administrative support. I'd be blocked in a flash. I had to work pretty hard to build those creds and resources. It takes time, many don't have the patience for it. And I'm not sure that it's a particularly sane thing for me to do. After all, what do I get out of it? Another day older and deeper in debt, the old song goes. But then people thank me, and I see that someone has been helped, and out of that, somebody creates hundreds of articles; from researching the blacklisting of lyrikline.org, I now have evidence and material for hundreds of links and possibly hundreds of new articles on notable poets, etc., etc. If one person hears and reads the poem of Chirikure Chirikure on lyrikline.org, (see Talk for the article), called Hakurarwi, what's that worth? What about a thousand people? Still blacklisted, but these barriers will fall. If not, Wikipedia is doomed, but I'd rather not see that waste. It's not about me, or about one link or article, but about the process. Process errors multiply, whereas individual errors are just individual errors.

Have some tea or coffee. Cream? Make yourself at home, come by any time. --Abd (talk) 05:15, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Indeed thank you for your verbose response, which I respected and read thoughtfully (and for the record I enjoy verbosity -- if that would be the right term. So many people are far too short and sweet and fail to expound on things that need expounding). However, one thing that strikes me apparent is the economics of such verbosity. If this post took up say 20 minutes of your time, that self-same 20 minutes could perhaps have been better spent for example getting your facts in a row for Arbcom, or looking through history for evidence, or perhaps familiarising yourself through wikipedia policy in order to be able to cite it later. In other words, if it were me, with some Wikipedia endeavours being overly cumbersome, it would actually chase me away from Wikipedia (and despite what some may say, this has in fact been the case for me to some degree). The issues on Wikipedia which you are taking up (which certainly do seem worthy) may ultimately cost you hours and days of your time. But it would be naive for me to assume you aren't aware of this already. You do this apparently because you want. So carry on.

You remarked / acknowledged that the admins at ANI failed to acknowledge that your dispute was over behaviour and not content and added ("Some think it's deliberate, skillful manipulation, but I think, probably not"). I get very frustrated at our admins for not being able to stick to the process of an issue - instead focusing on whatever is irrelevant and in many cases straw man arguments. I feel that process was not followed in your AN/I but sadly am not confident enough to be certain because I'm not an admin and perhaps there is more to it than I'm seeing, but certainly in the past I've seen this sort of thing happening quite often, yes in cases involving JzG -- again I would say I feel as if the mob is protecting him and I would like to believe that there are 'wise' admins out there who are conscious that this nonsense is going on. In any event -- mobster behaviour or not -- the result is a loss of faith in our admins, rightfully or wrongfully, misplaced or not. Adding to this already existing perception, the admins in this ANI didn't make it any easier by demonstrating a clear execution of procedure and policy -- a great amount of policy was cited -- but as to the actual procedural policy (perhaps the most relevant policy) it would seem the admins were left to interpret what to do without clarity. In other words, for your AN/I to be thrown out, I would like to see a proper rationale, a citation of policy which states something like "issues regarding policy do not belong on the ANI [unless this goes to admin behaviour]". In fact if this were a court, an impartial judge would try shed light on both sides of the argument, something like "..while it is clear this is a content issue, I am also not pursuaded that JzG's behaviour would be tantamount to an incident" -- you see, here the admin could have shed light on both YOUR argument (the OP) and the dissenting admins. But no, they appear to have simply taken one side and not even acknowledged yours. This again adds credence to a mob like situation.

Furthermore I have seen no compromise here. Nobody, (perhaps not even JzG) seems ready to admit any slight wrongdoing on his part or any acknowledgement of your side of the argument. It would be nice if we could hear "I believe I'm right but I do see your point" or "Sorry I just don't see it that way, but I do see your viewpoint". Instead the situation is twisted -- the sheep admins bleated "it takes two to wheel-war, it takes two" -- not admitting JzG may have been out of line, but instead bringing you out of line. We don't need 3 admins to give us that little nugget about taking 2 to wheel-war, almost tantamount to an attack.

I believe one message comes clear (to me) in my own response here, and that is that life is short, and when faced with an apparent cabal and all these politics, why not run as far away from this project as possible - why spend 20 minutes typing a reply to an uninvolved person that isn't going to help the situation - why not just let this system run itself amuck and hopefully correct itself?

I certainly respect your efforts and wish you every success, but I do hope that if you do succeed in your efforts that it would not be a phyrric victory and I am certainly not suggesting that you actually "run away" from the ghosts in this machine (and I would very much like to see JzG brought to book for much of his behaviour) -- I guess what I'm really trying to say is, respect the project and its spirit, don't respect its crap. :) Hope you managed to understand what I'm trying to say even though I may lack the most apt way of saying it or even sometimes say what I do not fully mean. Rfwoolf (talk)`

Thanks, Rfwoolf. I do know what I'm doing. There are admins who acknowledge, privately, the problem, and a few who have acknowledged it publicly, see the recent RfAr from JzG, some responses in which were cited in the instant AN/I report. As to private acknowledgment, the sense is that they got burned when they raised an issue before and they simply want to stay away. But there is regular WP:DR process, if someone has the patience to pursue it. If I were in a hurry, I'd be dead meat. It's tricky enough taking this slowly, but it does keep me saner. As I've said, JzG isn't the problem, but without examples of the problem accumulating, it's very difficult to do anything about it. JzG, hopefully, will see the train coming and will get off the tracks, but that will be up to him. He's warning me, by the way, that my behavior is heading for a ban. Perhaps. I don't think so, it would be pretty disruptive, unless I really screw up. I'm pretty sure there are those who are watching and waiting for that, I see little signs that what I do is being followed. But that's okay. One of the changes I'd recommend, ultimately, would be a system whereby administrative actions would be shadowed. What happens now is that some situation finally gets noticed and gets up to RfC or ArbComm, and then they go back and, what do you know, there is a trail littered with improperly blocked editors, speedy deletions that were abusive or inappropriate, etc. As a report said today, do we have to wait for the train wreck? But doing this would be tricky, and we don't want to set up a situation where administrators get slapped for every mistake. But we need to find mistakes quickly so that we know what is going on. It's about structure. --Abd (talk) 19:23, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

MfD nomination of User:Abd/JzG

User:Abd/JzG, 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/User:Abd/JzG and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of User:Abd/JzG 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!) 21:57, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Obama ACORN fight

I posted the following at the probation page of Ratttso:

Wikipedia is not your house, Abd. But my house was invaded by Holder and I was insulted by his "shouting" that "Americans are "cowards"". Also, Ratttso was blocked without comment before he began to "shout", then was insulted by Holder, not to mention several other editors that actually used proffanity herein. Typical Wikipedia setup and you know it. Besides, all he and anyone on the apposing side here have said that needs to be said at the beginning, that was technical was conveniently taken as derogatory clearly indicating the fallacy of wikipedia policy of allowing deletions for percieved attacks even though the deleter well knows that it was not meant as such but simply communicating a technical point. That policy should be changed to "generalized" insults of a non-technical nature. I'll take up Rattso's cause and the others that have been nefariously deleted and insulted, Abd. Game?

Let me know Cc2po (talk) 10:28, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Rattso crossed boundaries, and that others crossed boundaries should be irrelevant, except for possible consideration in further process, and with some acknowledgment from him that "he ain't gonna do it again." Rattso didn't respect the unblock template. Sure, he might be "right," in some way -- I have no judgment on that -- but two wrongs don't make a right. If you need help addressing civility and issues of conflict of interest or the like, I respond to requests and occasionally notice things and intervene without request. I'm not a miracle worker, but sometimes I've been able to reconcile opposing sides, and am working steadily (and slowly) on overall process issues. I went to Rattso's page and made an offer, and gave some advice. He ignored it. So I'm not terribly concerned about Rattso, but I am concerned about your description of the situation. (I.e., let me hypothesize. Editors A and B insult editor C. Editor C responds with tit for tat. Editor C is sanctioned. A and B continue without consequence.)

In theory, Wikipedia does not punish, it only protects the project. Editors are not to be blocked or banned based solely on past sins, but rather on expectation of continued damage. If you want to punish the other editors for their incivility, forget about it, you will bring fire and brimstone down on yourself. But if you want to, for example, warn an editor about recent incivility, go ahead. If the behavior is then repeated, there is a basis for further process. One step at a time, and seek consensus. I.e., when you warn, be very carefully civil. Don't make personal characterizations, like "bad faith," or "POV-pusher" or even "biased." Stick to what you could prove, and provide at least minimal evidence, such as diffs. Always provide the other editor with an escape route, i.e., a way to gracefully fix it. "Ah, I was upset that afternoon, I really shouldn't have said that." I.e., focus on the actual behavior, not intentions or the rest, even if you are personally convinced that the editor is out to wreck the place. Just talk about the damaging actions, clearly and succinctly. Assume good faith, i.e., that the damage was not intended. (Perhaps an editor does intend to drive another editor away, but believes that this will be the best thing for the project.)

Start small, with a direct request to the editor whose behavior seems improper to you. Follow WP:DR which would then suggest involving, perhaps, *one* more editor, ideally a neutral one, to mediate. I've done this successfully for others, and I've asked for mediation and it has worked. Insisting in immediately fixing things, being impatient, can bring a backlash. Keep the welfare of the project in mind. Nobody said that being a Wikipedia editor was easy, especially if one is going to edit articles on controversial topics. And read WP:DGAF, it is actually very sound advice. People at high levels in government and the judicial systems know that you win some and lose some, and if they got upset when they lose, they would become dysfunctional and start making mistakes by trying too hard.

Good luck, and if you think I can help, bring something specific to me. I can also be reached by email, if you need to keep it private.

By the way, I have opinions about ACORN and the attack on ACORN. They are, to me, irrelevant. I've intervened on behalf of editors whose POV I didn't like at all, because I believe more in NPOV and consensus process than I do in my own opinion. --Abd (talk) 16:58, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

In case you missed it, Cc2po was confirmed as a sock of Ratttso and Larrry2, all indef-blocked now. Also, their common IP address, 71.114.8.82, was put on ice for 3 months. That should quiet things down a little. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 09:37, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, BB. Sounds right on the face of it. If Cc2po thinks s/he got a bad deal, IP editors may post to User talk:Abd/IP under some conditions. Note that my AGF and offers of help do not in themselves indicate any specific opinion on my part. I may also be emailed directly at abd AT lomaxdesign PERIOD com. Offer subject to restrictions.... --Abd (talk) 18:06, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

He/she/it/they called attentive to it/themself by filing a complaint on WP:ANI. Socks always seem to think that no one has tried this before. Either that, or it's just a trolling game they're playing, to see how far they can go before getting nailed. There hasn't been a peep from any of them so far. They might be looking for a new computer to use, because they were "hard blocked", which I think means no new user IDs can be created on that channel. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 18:18, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I won't say here what I know about block evasion! Note that I'm not investigating this, I'm simply taking what you say as true. Basic principle of common law: testimony is presumed true unless controverted. (Lots of Wikipedia principles, such as AGF, have a solid foundation in common law, even ignore all rules is the common-law principle of Public policy. This situation looked grim from the beginning, and I certainly don't follow the noticeboards or administrators around looking for bad blocks, and, you'll note, I supported the block on Rattso's Talk page even as I offered help. I knew that it was unlikely that the offer would be seriously accepted; Rattso/Cc2po appears to have abused the privilege; Rattso could have directly contacted me, using a sock was deceptive and reprehensible. I also AGF for the people warning and blocking and filing checkuser, etc! I even assumed good faith for the administrator who blocked me last year. I even assume it for Fredrick day, ultimately, though the definition of "good faith" gets a tad stretched! (I.e., I think Fd has the welfare of the project in mind, but simply doesn't understand the importance of consensus and respect for community norms. If he ever showed a change of intention, I'd support his unban, and if a sock of his is identified, I would not automatically assume that it should be blocked. It would depend on whether or not it was disruptive.) Thanks again. --Abd (talk) 18:41, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Request for assistance resolving dispute with JzG

This is about use of admin tools while involved with Cold fusion. See User:Abd/Notices. --Abd (talk) 15:13, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Blacklist

Go for it like many admin task pages there are a number regulars, the lower the volume of traffic the lower the number of people who maintain it. Its been a while since I had any involvement with the page, the RWW just caught my eye. All I did was answer questions about the original posting, something I had nothing to do with but it was glaring to see that supporters for removal had expressed their inability to see why it was listed. That particular discussion was a problem in that because its a notable site it cant have been spammed was the arguments put forward, given that it was nommed and list the editor shouldnt have declined the request, like wise with questions unanswered and acknowldged canvassing the site shouldnt have been delisted based on the numbers. These occur because the process problems arent being addressed, of all the admin actions this requires a good deal of time spent chasing down holes, many of which are in deleted contributions. How much info do we really want to make public about how things were detected to me an indepth review while necessary can also make the job of avoidance easier in the future. RWW may have not been a RS when it was listed but it in some cases it can be considered one now, I'm just watching for wholesale abuse what happens after that will depend on the methods being used.

I think what will help these processes is for a guide on how to discuss listings/removals like Wikipedia:AFD#How_to_discuss_an_AfD. This maybe the best initial approach as it can be tweaked easiy while getting use, also the process for listing and removal should have some basic notification templates created so as to ensure discussion, and an ettiquette guide. This should also help to expand the pool of regulars at the table so as to avoid COI on actions.Gnangarra 14:09, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for visiting my Talk page, welcome. Sure, there are lots of misconceptions out there. As to canvassing, however, remember, the numbers don't count, it's the arguments. (My position is that canvassing, in itself, shouldn't be a problem. Disruption is disruption, though. Canvassing that brings in hosts of "me too" comments from random editors gunks up a discussion; but in the case of the blacklist talk pages, as you know, there is usually low participation, with most comments coming from editors very involved with the blacklisting process and perhaps attempting to defend it. That is just as much of a problem in the opposite direction). As was noted, if there is a problem with the site, relisting is simple. My comment, the one that Hu12 removed but that is now restored with his permission, and overwhelming consensus at AN/I, pointed out that the original reasons for blacklisting were moot. All that should matter with a delisting request is whether continued listing is needed. And if it is, then reference should be made to the whitelist pages, and what I've found frustrating is that whitelist requests are met with "but it was properly blacklisted." So? And then the response goes on with "And it isn't needed." I.e., the sky will not fall if the link isn't used? But will the sky fall if a specific link is whitelisted? How many links are added every day that are quite inappropriate, and undetected, and how many possibly inappropriate listings would be added through an easy whitelisting process? I think we should consider reducing the protection level of the whitelist page to semi; it would be easy enough to watch that page to remove clearly inappropriate additions (and to block apparent spam accounts).

If the delisting and whitelisting processes were easier, then it would be easier to blacklist without damage. And there would be much less damage to Wikipedia's reputation, both the obvious damage represented by that blog description of the blacklisting, and the more subtle and pernicious damage represented by burned users such as User:Lyriker. See User:Abd/Blacklist/lyrikline.org for the sad story. This editor was clearly beginning to work hard to improve the project, world-wide, as he saw it. He needed nothing more than a little guidance as to how to add so many links without disruption. What did he get? Indef blocked by Hu12, for totally spurious reasons, a mere appearance that disappears with only a little thought and understanding. The article he gave us on Lyrikline.org deleted as promotional advertising, which it was not. And many hours of work reversed rapidly without any consideration of whether or not the links were appropriate. What would we call massive, possibly bot-assisted, removal of content, not all coming from one editor, and arguably positive contributions?

I don't know about you, but if it is done without discussion relating to content, I'd call it "vandalism." Blacklisting can be seen as an emergency measure, to stop the addition of possibly inappropriate links. But removal is another matter, and should be done more carefully. In the case of lyrikline links, they'd been standing for a time, there was no emergency. The worst damage done would have been some links that blacklist editors might consider "unnecessary," persisting for a little while until there could be some discussion. In this case, an appropriate place for discussion might have been WP:WikiProject Poetry, or on a few Talk pages for affected articles, or a bot-added note to all articles where removal might be an issue. Instead, we had mass removal, massively cross-wiki, by IP editors.

Anyway, I don't think it will be difficult to fix, it simply has needed some attention, and I hope you will watch and/or contribute to User:Abd/Blacklist and related pages linked from there. If there are any errors in the reports, please, fix them. If my opinions are based on ignorance of how the blacklist operates or its needs, please advise me. It's a shame that Hu12 seems to have responded with hostility. I wasn't going after him, I was merely trying to clean up, on occasion, some possible messes that he left behind. He's done a lot of work, a few errors would be expected. However, the more I've looked, I've begun to expect that it wasn't just a few. There may be much more extensive cleanup necessary. (Good delisting and whitelisting process makes it unnecessary to focus on possible problems specifically with his blacklisting actions, but it might be a good idea to look for editors blocked by him contrary to block policy, or speedy deletions that weren't appropriate as to content, but were retaliatory for alleged linkspam, and start to undo these. I'll start with User:Lyriker. There is absolutely no reason why he should have been blocked. He responded to warnings and stopped adding links. His user name and his edit history on de.wikipedia (de user Lyrik) simply means "Poet," showing an interest in poetry. He started editing as IP (stable) and added links back in 2006, he thought what he was doing was helpful, and, suddenly, Wham! Indef blocked, article deleted, global blacklisting of possibly the best poetry web site on the net, see the article, and most of his work undone in a very short time. He should get a barnstar, not an indef block record. So I'll take this one to AN, I suppose. Not an emergency, but important, he still edits IP on odd occasions on de, though he was never blocked there.

The stock answer given to web site managers, "we don't consider requests from site owners," leaves me wondering, "Why not?" Who is we? True spammers are unlikely to bother, and the usage of "we" by Hu12 (and perhaps others) seems to imagine a tight group of admins who are in control, and who don't have time for it. But any admin can delist, it's just the removal of a line in the list page, and any editor could suggest it to any admin, and it isn't clear that discussion of a removal is even necessary. (If links can be added without discussion, as they have been, and has been accepted by blacklist admins when it's been pointed out, why not delisting?). If there is a page for IP editors, new accounts, and others, to request delisting or whitelisting, or, more likely, to assist them in finding a user -- does not have to be an administrator -- to request delisting, having reviewed their request and being in support, then "we" can consider such requests. This particular request was made by the site owner. And it was quite worthy of consideration. I'm afraid Hu12 shot himself in the foot. If he'd not declined the request for ReadWriteWeb, but simply let it sit, the problems with his original listing might never have come to light. If he'd not removed my harmless (at worst) comment, and then edit warred over it, there would still have been some continued examination of the case on User:Abd/Blacklist/readwriteweb.com, but no egg all over his face in public as happened at AN/I. It's the battlefield mentality, I'm afraid. Another admin who worked RCP explained to me how, after doing it for a while, it seemed like there was a spammer, POV-pusher, or vandal underneath every edit, and he became very revert-happy. Take that, Enemies of All that is Good and Reliably Sourced! --Abd (talk) 15:03, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Abd, would you please suggest one (1) place (it could be here) where there is talk-page-style discussion of the blacklist/whitelist processes that I could get involved in, preferably some sort of centralized discussion? Thanks. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 19:38, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there is a place, really, the Talk pages are being used for dealing with the blacklist activity. WP:WikiProject Spam is oriented toward blacklisting, and even suggests that AGF may have to go. The MediaWiki pages are all working pages and general discussion isn't welcome there. There definitely should be a guideline, but it's grown like Topsy, I think. I'm soliciting comment and help with User:Abd/Blacklist and subpages, the Talk page there is quite open. My goal with the user pages is to develop a report on recommendations to deal with the issues I've found. There are subpages with evidence regarding specific blacklisting cases, the one I've put the most attention into is User:Abd/Blacklist/lyrikline.org, and there is a Talk page attached, of course. --Abd (talk) 19:51, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks. It looks as if User talk:Abd/Blacklist is the discussion I was looking for. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 16:24, 25 February 2009 (UTC)