User talk:Drac2000

Sorry

Sorry, perhaps I struck the wrong tone at the IGE article; no slight of recent efforts was intended. linas 03:10, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Linas, thanks for you kind comment. I found your constructive criticism over at the Induced gamma emission talk page to be extremely helpful. Please continue to share your talent and expretise and we will achieve something that is a credit to Wikipedia. As I said my background is more with laser concepts and for me that makes these interdisciplinary efforts particularly exciting. I will address your insights and thoughtful comments over on the discussion page next. Just wanted to convey my personal thanks here first thing today.

Regards, --Drac2000 14:44, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, and you've done a fine job on the article so far. The reason for the controversy can be better understood once you've seen some typical bad-behaviour patterns. -- We have "true believers" who document perpetual motion machines (category:perpetual motion machines) as if they really really worked; edit wars start when someone comes to insert a sentence to the effect: "this won't ever work". We have people who have proven Einstein to be wrong .. Sheesh. They get quickly deleted, but not without a fight. Theories of UFO propulsion ... Category:Pseudophysics. On the medical side, we have intense arguments about the true dangers of environmental pollutants, and about whether some hopeful but untested cure works -- even the efficacy of vitamins is contested. Many of the "problem editors" have a poor background in science -- but not always. There have been a few quite legit academics, who have made quite outrageous statements; in one case the person, though actually quite well-respected for their early work, was banned after more than half a year of abusive editing. Far too often, we have rational, well-balanced editors who have no expertise in a field trying to keep the kooks at bay: so even for the well-meaning editor, it becomes difficult to tell truth from fiction. It is this last case that seems to apply to IGE. There does not currently seem to be an ongoing controversy there, but you can certainly see the fallout. linas 15:01, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New cats

Rather than creating a new cat, e.g. Category:Nuclear interdisciplinary topics, its usually a better idea to put an article into multiple categories. SO IGE should probably be in Category:Directed-energy weapons, Category:Quantum optics and so on. There's no harm in having lots of cats, it makes the article more visible. Presuming, that is, you want it to be more visible. linas 06:09, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Linas, nice to be in discussions again. As always, you are able to illuminate the core of the problem. I agree completely that multiple categories is preferable to new categories. However, I do feel that the weaponization of the IGE topic was regrettable and still tends to intimidate consideration of a very interesting interdisciplinary topic. There is not a category of isomers, but anyway isomers are excited state isotopes so how would you see the two categories of "isotopes" and "quantum optics"? If you find merit in that approach, would you please make the change and erase the category that I had added? I am not sure that I could do such linked actions and I would like to see how it is done. Thanks for the improvement.

--Drac2000 14:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There aren't always suitable categories; these may arrive later. After some given cat grows to more than 50-100 articles in it, it becomes easy to spot a pattern, and to split that cat up into something more refined. As long as an article is in the appropriate general cats, it will end up in the appropriate subcats if and when these are created.

To delete a cat, you empty out all the articles, and put {{delete}} in there. An admin will come by to delete it. It looks better when the original creator asks for deletion.

As to weaponization ... I'm not sure what you refer to. If you think some young scientist will read the WP article and say to themselves, "wow, this is an interesting research area, I think I'll go into it", that seems unlikely, ... but, well, I suppose it could happen. But the weaponization seems unavoidable, and chilling. Even a small amount of reading about will bring to light the past disputes. And you'd have to be a dolt to be in possession of a substance with a high energy density and not realize it might be made to explode. Personally, I find the idea of IGE very intriguing, its quite remarkable. But its also spooky: I envision regular visits from spy and military agents who deliver thuggish messages and injunctions. You may as well be working on anthrax or something, one of these hot-button topics that eventually get turned into a Hollywood movie after the protagonist drowns in 3 inches of water. linas 16:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there is a lot of work on IGE (as distinct from the Hf-controversy) that is surely interdisciplinary. One is "Quantum nucleonics" introduced by the Russians and who so far have avoided introducing this intriguing topic anywhere in Wiki. It is the analog for proton transitions of almost all of the tricks of quantum electronics with electron transitions. There are also the interests in nuclear waste remediation by speeding up the radioactive decay, which for gamma emitters is IGE. That's again best approached from an atomic physics viewpoint. Finally, I think I should ask everyone to keep in mind that most isomers do not store such great energies. I really think that the IGE topic is pure research and no more to do with weapons than thermodynamics. We would not be considering a category of weapons for thermodynamics. I think it is the same for IGE. The other page about the Hf-controversy might be weapons, so perhaps we should consider each separately. Frankly, I think that if Nuclear interdisciplinary sticks around a while, we will find it collecting some interesting articles on different places along what seems an exciting revitalization of one frontier of Nuclear Physics.

--Drac2000 00:36, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You've been reported at WP:AN3

Please see WP:AN3#User:Drac2000 reported by User:FellGleaming (Result: ). You may respond there if you wish. Specifically, I'd like to hear why you're removing the original research and verification tags. Generally, removing tags needs a talk page consensus, and shouldn't simply reflect your personal opinion. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 20:27, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your opinion that the article has now been improved is far from sufficient. I strongly recommend you undo your last edit. You're getting very close to a block. In your further comments at AN3, you seem to have ignored my warning above. I was looking for a statement from you that you would abide by consensus. Undoing your last edit would be a way to show us you are sincere. EdJohnston (talk) 03:56, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ed, Wikipedia has changed so much from the time it was a mutually constructive activity of colleagues motivated to compile human understanding that I did not know even where to reply to your demands. Sorry, for my ignorance of the rules for enforcement and for not anticipating the level of theater that could be introduced by what some of us older hands refer to as a "drive-by...(Editor)". Possibly you too, Ed have other more important professional activities than this and that is why you seized upon this ploy of asking me to agree to WP:CON to prove "good faith." My good faith has been evidenced by years of service to Wikipedia and by many successful involvements in seeking consensus.

Ed, what about your good faith? Probably at your rank in Wikipedia it must be stipulated by us "drones" on the front-lines, but I would like to test it. Still not knowing where to put this reply, I will put it several places. FellGleamings' last dictum before obsessing about his "maltreatment" was to propose that the page in contention had no place in Wikipedia. I agree and propose that the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_gamma_emission:_Hafnium_controversy be deleted entirely. Unfortunately, I do not know how to propose that recommendation, but imagine that at your high level of authority you could do it. Please do it. Of course, there is the hazard that FellGleamings will shy away from such an actual consensus with me now that I have caught up with him in agreement and will want yet something else.

--Drac2000 (talk) 14:13, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Drac, based on your last set of comments, I have removed my report of you from the notice board, and moved the discussion back to the article's talk page. If you actually believe the article is unsalvageable, we can nominate it for deletion together. Or, we can work together to handle what I now believe you acknowledge are some real, substantial issues. Thanks. FellGleaming (talk) 15:09, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've restored the case to the noticeboard, but closed it with No Action, so it may now be seen at WP:AN3#User:Drac2000 reported by User:FellGleaming (Result: No action). I'm glad that the two of you seem to be negotiating. If you find that no agreement is possible, the steps of WP:Dispute resolution are open to you. I suggest not reverting one another until agreement is reached. EdJohnston (talk) 15:41, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hafnium controversy

Does this seem right? [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.221.32.10 (talk) 20:49, 9 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open!

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