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Taoism / Daoism

Are you interested in practicing Taoism or merely interested in Taoism? Just totally curious...--达伟 (talk) 15:01, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

What do you think is the difference between those two statements? --Ludwigs2 15:27, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Lamburquini

if it becomes an issue, I'm sure some enterprising person will create a "driving burqua" with appropriate modifications, --Ludwigs2 01:22, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Like the burqini? 24.189.88.30 (talk) 01:47, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
more or less, except I think they'd call it a Lamburquini <badum-bump>--Ludwigs2 02:03, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

That was VERY funny! DRosenbach (Talk | Contribs) 03:06, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Need a trick up my sleeve...

And you're the first person I'd consider. Re for details. Has potential to be frustrating and large, however. Xavexgoem (talk) 07:18, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

What is it you're looking at? should I contact you offline, or do you want to post it here? --Ludwigs2 01:51, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Teeninvestor

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Teeninvestor. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 01:35, 17 July 2010 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}})

Moderation required at Moses article

I dont edit on Wikipedia often, but astonished to see there is no one moderating the Moses page. Hadn't looked at the article for over a month, and the original research content that was removed as per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Moses as symbol in American history was delete, not merge..... (which you partook in)... and the user Wikiwatcher1 put back in! Does no one mod these pages? I tried to delete the said removed material but the Cluebot auto reverted (obviously when a clunk of material is removed the bot can go faulty)... a more established user who knows how to overcome the fault with the automatic bot can remove the previously removed content. Cheers Ludwigs.AussieGreen&Gold (talk) 22:10, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

You've missed my actions. I've deleted the section again (Cluebot only does that once), raised the issue at WP:ANI and on the article talk page. I agree, the decision was delete, not merge. Dougweller (talk) 13:15, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok thanks.AussieGreen&Gold (talk) 23:21, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

just as an observation, Wikipedia is intentionally unmoderated. but I will put the page on my watchlist. --Ludwigs2 15:13, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Macintosh startup behaviors

Hi. I think this article was created prematurely as it has so little content it could get speedily deleted. To prevent this, I have moved it into your user space. It is now here: User:Ludwigs2/Macintosh startup behaviors. You can edit it at your leisure without worrying about it being deleted and then move it back to being an article once it is ready. --DanielRigal (talk) 22:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

uh, what? speedy deletions are easily dealt with (that's what {{hangon}} is for), and userification is usually reserved for problematic articles, not new ones.
in other words, I'm not worried, so unless you have a problem with this article (which we should talk about if you do), I'd really prefer it if you moved it back where it was. thanks. --Ludwigs2 22:43, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
It is up to you. Move it back if you want to. I certainly won't tag it for speedy deletion, but somebody else might, and it could be gone before you get a change to put the hangon on it. I would recommend to work on it out of the article space, at least until it has enough content to qualify as a stub and avoid CSD:A3, but it is your article so do whatever you think is best. Sorry if you feel I trod on your toes. I was trying to be helpful. --DanielRigal (talk) 00:04, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

File:Brown lady.jpg

I've attempted to provide an FUR for this image, you might want to check it and see if anything got lost in the process... Sfan00 IMG (talk) 15:10, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

hunh, I hadn't realized there was a template needed for that. It looks fine at a glance, but I'll take a closer look at it tomorrow. --Ludwigs2 03:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Not ready for arb time

I thought I'd share with you what I almost posted at the arbitration. I didn't as I expected there would be some who would not see the humor and interpret it as a veiled threat to be disruptive.

Reductio ad Ludwigsium: I'd much rather stick around to engage in collegial spirited discussion. But if reduced to sticking around just to be a pain, I can do that too. Your choice.

Best, PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 21:51, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

LMAO. --Ludwigs2 22:38, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Oops, forgot the matter of choice. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 22:16, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

FYI

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Mathsci (talk) 20:52, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

this doesn't point to anything - what is its meaning? --Ludwigs2 20:56, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Don't blame Mathsci, that's the notice produced by posting "{{subst:ANI-notice}} ~~~~" as is suggested at the top of WP:ANI. I do agree it's unfortunate that it doesn't provide a direct link to the discussion, though. EdChem (talk) 21:32, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
it wasn't blame, I was just confused. Mathsci's usually more careful with things like that. It got sorted out though. thanks. --Ludwigs2 21:41, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Arbitration withdrawal

In response, arbitration is not the same as mediation where a party may withdraw at any time. It is certainly your right to not participate in the proceedings anymore, but striking your name as you did is not acceptable as is making commentary with the strike on the case page. To do this, you will need the consent of the committee (I suggest via email to the mailing list). -MBK004 15:01, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I see. sorry, I didn't think it was that big of an issue. thanks. --Ludwigs2 16:20, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Apologies. Seemed like a no-brainer to me, but what do I know :) --RegentsPark (talk) 21:23, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
well, you know more than me, but that might be faint praise. I sent an email to the committee, and we'll see what they say. It's not a huge issue, either way; I just don't see any further point in arguing with Mathsci (which seems to be my main activities there, of late), and would like to opt out of a situation where I have to defend myself against what he says. but if worse comes to worst I'll just ignore him and let things fall out as they will. --Ludwigs2 21:44, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

off-wiki

You may not consider this a satisfactory response to your comments, but, for what it is worth, I think that in general Wikipedians should be discouraged from doing any research on the WWW. The web has some great resources - many important works of original scholarship areavailable on-line in a way they are not in paper. BUT I see more and more wikipedians who think research is going to Google scholar and using whatever snippets they find - in short, taking information out of context, so it is impossible to assess the real meaning of the quote. Or people just crib from other online encyclopedias. WP then just becomes a systematic compendium of what is already available to everyone online. I wish we could revise some policies to address this and to encourage people to do research in libraries.

But, be that as it may, most Wikipedians view this project as the culmination of a wide range of work across the www and many wikipedians continue discussions here elsewhere on-line. Obviously, my own view is that anything that happens online is "public" so I agree with all those who concluded this was not outing (now, had Mathsci investigated IP addresses and cross-referenced one account operating under one name, with another account operating under another name, well, there I would find it hard to defend him). But this is not why I came here, we can agree to disagree on this.

I just want to voice an even larger point that Wikipedians do too much of ALL of their research on-line to begin wtih. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:49, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

yeah, I have to agree with you on that. I mean, I can see the advantages of using web-sources. they provide accessible material for people without scholarly training or access to academic libraries, which really opens up wikipedia to a broad range of editors who would otherwise be excluded from participating. but it has to be done very carefully, otherwise even well-intentioned editors can introduce biased viewpoints. I like the "encyclopedia that everyone can edit" ideal, but it carries some issues with it.
with respect to Mathsci: really, you may not believe this, but my only issue with Mathsci is that (pardon my putting it this way) he acts like a tool. He's a great editor, content-wise, but his conflicts with other editors always turn into monkey fights (you know how monkeys fight, right?), and he stoops to a level of personalization that I find offensive. in my experience, when Mathsci steps into an article either (1) the article rapidly and quietly improves, or (2) the article devolves into Sherman's March to the Sea. there doesn't seem to be any middle ground with him. we can disagree about the DK thing (and I do disagree, but it's not that important), but it wouldn't have become an issue if Mathsci had simply shown some discretion and left it alone, without trying to leverage it to his advantage. but, c'est la vie. --Ludwigs2 00:11, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Since it's on my watchlist now... I have to completely agree on sources, there is no substitute for sitting down and reading several of the best books you can find on whatever topic you're interested before contributing. Otherwise all you're doing is cobbling together something based on what's available online, whether or not representative (usually not!). Close behind are using numbers of Google matches to settle anything and editors who "insist" on online sources for "verifiability" (usually POV pushers looking to suppress reputable published sources which Google will never be able to purloin). PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 01:07, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, if either or both of you would like to work with me on drafting a proposed add to the RS policy (or some other policy) on the importance of knowing the full context of any cited work, that relying on snippets or partial views of a text is unacceptable, I would be glad to work on that and I am sure it would be a better proposal if it were the result of a collaboration. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:23, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm game. let me go and read wp:RS closely to see how best this might fit in, or it you've already got a suggestion for how it might be written feel free to post it. --Ludwigs2 21:30, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
It's been a while since I've looked at it, I'll do so as well. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 02:30, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to post without us having at least some sort of mini-consensus. See what you think of the following. I'd suggest this as a third paragraph added to the introduction.

There is no substitute for sitting down and reading several of the best books you can find on whatever topic you're interested in before contributing. Sources which are available online only in snippet views, extracts, or snapshots of abstracts are inferior and may be misleading because they are incomplete: forming editorial opinions and writing articles based solely on such partial sources is discouraged. You should have an entire source available to discuss why your representation is fair and accurate—and you should (preferably) have read it completely. Nor should editors insist on online sources for "verifiability." Sources representing the highest standards of current scholarship are generally not available online for free. They are available at your public or university library. Used copies of recent and out-of-print titles can also be purchased online from a number of sources often at reasonable cost.

Speaking personally, I used to say, "What did I do before the Internet?" Now I've refined that to, "What did I do before abebooks?" :-) I'm sure this can be word-smithed to something more succinct. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 03:12, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

P.S. My main sources for books are abebooks, Alibris, and Ebay. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 03:14, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

it seems to me that passage sets a bit of a high bar that will discourage entry-level and low-income editors. It's also a bit extreme: using internet sources in not inherently bad. The problem with internet sources is that they lend themselves to misrepresentation. I'd suggest a more gradated approach:

Exclusive use of electronic media available over the internet is not 'best practice'. While such sources may be reliable in a strict sense, the material available on the web usually suffers from selection bias: many of the best sources are not freely available, and many of the available sources are hosted by individuals or groups who choose them in order to advance a position. Care must be taken to ensure that web-derived sources are not being presented with undue weight by by the websites that present them, and if individual quotes or summaries of reliable sources are offered by websites they must be verified against the originals to ensure that they have not been taken out of context or otherwise misrepresented. The more contested a point is among wikipedia editors, the less useful web sources become: in such cases editors should read and quote original scholarly material to the extent possible, so that there are no intervening third parties who might change the meaning of the work.

also, I'm not sure if this is intro material - it feels more like a section in the body of the policy to me. maybe a line in the intro to the effect that web-derived media should be used cautiously... do you see what I'm after, though? let people use web sources as a general practice (so long as they're cautious), but direct them away from them in order to resolve more contentious disputes. --Ludwigs2 04:03, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Your version definitely feels more like detail for the body of the policy. A bit of tightening, perhaps. "Online sources are often hosted—and sometimes mischaracterized—by advocacy groups advancing a position." Of course, my personal site has been called nationalist propaganda, I call it heritage and scholarship. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 21:06, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree that this text belongs in the body rather than the lead. I also think Ludwigs2’s version of the text is an improvement over Vecrumba’s original suggestion, since some of us don’t have consistent access to academic libraries, and it would be unfortunate if this policy essentially disallowed people like that from contributing to articles here. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:35, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Exclusive use of electronic media available over the internet is not "best practice." While such sources may be reliable in a strict sense, material available on the web usually suffers from selection bias: many of the best sources are not freely available; moreover, free sources are often hosted by advocates who choose them in order to advance their position. Care must be taken to ensure that web-derived sources are not given undue weight by the presenting website—and if individual quotes or summaries of reliable sources are offered by a website, they must be verified against the originals to ensure that they have not been taken out of context or otherwise misrepresented. The more contested a point is among Wikipedia editors, the less useful web sources become: in such cases editors should read and quote original scholarly material to the extent possible, so that there are no intervening third parties who might change the meaning of the work.

I'm satisfied with either, this or earlier. We can always refine once there's a larger audience. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 18:59, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Let's wait for feedback from slrubenstein. It was his idea to begin with, and frankly if we can craft something that satisfies all of us then it is bound to be unbiased, and will likely be a distinct improvement to the policy. I suspect he's busy, and there's no hurry, so let's give him a few days to get back on it. I want to reread the policy about five times anyway - nothing quite like repetition to bring out the fine points of a topic. --Ludwigs2 19:31, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Absolutely. I feel like I've been overusing "no train leaving the station" lately. Letting something sit for a week and revisiting is always the best way to see if it still really communicates what's desired. A nice change from the proceedings. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 03:26, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

(We can continue commenting above) Back to the original point, committing to read an entire book isn't just about subsequently representing it fairly and accurately, it's also about spending time absorbing and thinking about a topic, and away from the computer and its distractions. Too often editors find an online source that matches their personal prejudices and they're off to the races. That's why at least half the articles on WP these days seem to be a conglomerate of spot quotes and not real writing. Has anyone written any Wiki essays on the benefit of books? As an aside I can't tell from reviews of Ereaders if people feel more like it's a book reading experience or computer screen reading experience. I've got a Kindle reader on my PC and it doesn't do anything to enhance absorbing material. I think it's part of the same problem I have (and have confirmed with numerous others) that somehow you don't notice things on a computer screen which, however, are immediately and glaringly obvious when you print the same content out on paper. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 03:39, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Apple Inc. August 2010 Newsletter
The iNewsletter/issue 1/august 2010/by mono & dwayne
Project news
  • After several months of collaboration on Macintosh, the article was delisted from featured article status.
  • Last month, WikiProject Apple Inc. quietly launched several new departments (collaboration, outreach and strategy). A new program by the outreach department is preparing to launch a recruiting effort (ORDER).
  • Please take a moment to welcome our new members: Eraserhead1, Leet Sher, and Allmightyduck.
  • Details are being ironed out for a weekly project discussion on IRC. Contact Mono for more information.
New articles Featured article

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of Mono at 01:52, 6 August 2010 (UTC).

FYI

Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#User:Goethean -- since you are a editor at Ramakrishna and had participated in similar discussion before. --TheMandarin (talk) 04:32, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Am I allowed to vote?

On the meditation about Israel? Thanks?--Mbz1 (talk) 21:46, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

What brings this question up? mediation does not involve voting - the straw poll is just a measure to see whether we have sufficient consensus to implement the change and close the mediation. I'm a little leery of someone coming in at the end of the mediation just to register a one-shot opinion. the mediation has been around for a good long while now, and ideally you should have entered it when it started and helped frame the discussion.
So my answer is this: unless you have taken the time to read through all the arguments on the page, and have mastered them well enough to contribute something meaningful to an informed discussion on the topic, then no, you can't vote. If you pop in just to make some polemical claim that was raised and dismissed a month ago by someone else, I will probably redact your addition as unhelpful. However, if you can contribute something that will help create stronger consensus (something that helps resolve the differences between the sides, for example), then I would probably allow that to remain, because - hey, who could argue with that? --Ludwigs2 22:00, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Mediation

Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2010-04-14/Israel_and_the_apartheid_analogy is starting to lose its resemblance to a mediation. The absence of the mediator is possibly not helping. ;) Ryan Paddy (talk) 01:00, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I was offline for a couple of days (life - you remember that thing?). I'll check now. --Ludwigs2 01:11, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Post at Shell's talk page

Hi Ludwigs... in the intersts of transparency, I feel obligated to alert you of this section I started at user talk:Shell Kinney. EdChem (talk) 06:57, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Ed: It's all good. like Shell, I would be very surprised if the mediation result stuck (which is why I advised the participants to open a new thread on the article talk to discuss the mediation results, before they jumped into making page moves, and why I recommended formal mediation). but the informal mediation had reached a 90/10 (or so) stalemate, and there was nothing I could do to tweak or cajole people into further discussion, so the mediation no longer served a purpose. if they can't settle things on the talk page given this, then they ought to go to more authoritative forms of dispute resolution.
Even though I suspect you'd object, I really ought to go RfA one of these days. Given sysop status I could have ended this dispute in a matter of a week or two, and could probably clean up most of the pro/anti-Israeli problems on pages like this in a couple of months. Honestly, I see exactly how to do it (it's just a question of policing the proper discursive environment - I'll explain that if you really want, but it is not an easy concept to frame in lay terminology). How badly would you and your buds ream me if I tried, and what kind of guarantees would it take to get you not to? Just curious... --Ludwigs2 08:12, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Hi Ludwigs2, I recognise that there isn't much you or any mediator could do in the face of a 90/10 stalemate. Further, I recognise the danger of a mediator having a strong personal stake in an outcome; the fact that you recognise the weakness of the outcome is also good. Shell's comments made some cogent points. You might note that Shell has now altered the comments regarding you, so you can hardly be upset about the result of my drawing leaving a note about the Israel / Apartheid mediation.

Regarding the rest of your comments, I am really disappointed to learn you see me as a partisan opponent. I have no horse in the R&I race; my interest in the case arose in part from Mathsci's actions (which the evidence does show warrant censure) and Coren's draft being such a content ruling. Yes, I was unimpressed with your comments on the talk page, but bad news: that opinion was formed in response to your postings. I have no "buds" that determine my opinions. As far as RfA goes, I rarely vote. If I were to vote on your candidacy I would have to consider carefully my view. The fact that you view the Israel / Palestine issues as being so readily solvable seems to me to be somewhere between incredibly and foolishly optimistic - and I would guess your optimisim could easily be a topic for RfA questions. You wouldn't need to do any deal with me to run, and frankly I object to deals being done to influence the outcomes of RfAs. In short, I suggest that your view of me is much more a reflection of your preconceptions than it is a reflection my actions. EdChem (talk) 09:23, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry Ed, I meant no offense, and you're most likely right. Honestly, I don't have any intrinsic problem with people working with their friends or other 'people of like interests' (not saying that that's the case with respect to you, just pointing out my opinion); it's a natural and unavoidable concomitant of the kind of political structure Wikipedia has developed. However, there's a culture of secrecy about it on wikipedia that makes it impossible to determine when people are cooperating and when they are just (more-or-less randomly) agreeing. I tend to assume that people are cooperating as a matter of course (in a non-pejorative way) because in the majority of cases the assumption that people are not cooperating is both improbable and naïve. My apologies if that assumption was incorrect or caused you any stress.
The entire R&I kerfluffle is a case in point. It started as a coordinated attack - I had four or so editors (including Mathsci) make bizarre and more-or-less simultaneous edits across several articles from my history after I suggested I might take User:BullRangifer to RfC/U (these were either indirect personal attacks like Mathsci's or the raising of long-dead disputes I had long ago on otherwise stable pages). I ignored the others and focused on Mathsci as a matter of strategy, for reasons I won't bother to explain, but you can see why I might interpret your involvement in the same light. Again, it's not an issue for me - I wouldn't think less of you if you were cooperating, and I certainly don't think less of you if you're not - I'm just a realist about things like this.
The israel/Palestine thing (as well as most of the other tendentious disputes on wikipedia) are actually easy to resolve; that's not simple optimism. The problem on those pages is that most editors there have forgotten (and many others don't care) that this project is aiming to be an encyclopedia. They lose focus of the goal, get tangled up in political fervors that have no place in semi-scholarly discussions, and begin operating on a win/lose rhetorical model that destroys deliberative communication (and thus renders rational discussion impotent). Most administrators, worse, lack the technical knowledge needed to properly assess the problem, and fall back on a 'reticent interventionist' strategy (laissez faire non-involvement with sporadic - and usually excessive - bouts of unfocused activity. A bit like US military policy, and you can see how effective that's been). I know precisely what deliberative structures need to be created to insure productive discussion, I know how to structure situations so that achievement of editing goals is tied to usage of the correct discursive model; all I lack is the technical power that would allow me to construct such situations. This is my field, Ed...
Don't mistake me, though: I wasn't trying to 'cut a deal'. The question was more along the lines of a litmus test. You are an editor I've had some differences with, but not one of the few I've had dedicated conflicts with, so your opinion is a useful metric of how much opposition I'd run into. Believe me, if I decide to do it (which I probably will, sooner or later) I will be very explicit about why I want the sysop bit set, what I want to do with it, and what I won't do with it, and I never intentionally compromise my own ideals. But I also don't see the point in the RfA discussion turning into another monkey fight, so it's worth seeing if there's anyway to forestall the worst of that in advance. As I said, I'm pragmatic. --Ludwigs2 17:02, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
P.s. Just noticed your edit summary - [1]. please - are you serious? lol --Ludwigs2 22:29, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

You may want to weigh in

here NickCT (talk) 21:09, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Outcome of the arbitration case

I’m cross-posting this to Varoon Arya, DJ, and Ludwigs2 because I think the outcome of this case is something all three of you ought to know about. The case hasn’t officially been closed yet, but it’s pretty clear by this point what the outcome is going to be.

Mathsci is getting topic banned. That’s the most important piece of news for me to mention, because all three of you have said that the reason you stopped participating in the race and intelligence article is because you couldn’t tolerate his behavior. ArbCom is also authorizing discretionary sanctions for both POV-pushing and incivility, so hopefully there will also be a lot fewer problem with these things from editors other than Mathsci.

The other important piece of news is that David.Kane and I are also going to be topic banned. As for Mikemikev, he was indef-blocked for making personal attacks before the case was even finished. I suspect that he got himself blocked intentionally, because the arbitrators were already voting in favor of a site-ban for him, and he probably wanted to get in a last few digs at his opposition once he knew that he had nothing to lose from it.

The reason I think this should matter to all of you is because without me, David.Kane or Mikemikev, almost all of the most active users involved in this article are people like Ramdrake, Slrubenstein and Muntuwandi who regard the hereditarian hypothesis as a “fringe” theory. Even in the presence of discretionary sanctions, and even if they aren’t going to engage in deliberate POV-pushing, I’m concerned that with this balance of editors the article will still end up being slanted in favor of that perspective. It isn’t always possible for people to recognize POV wording when there’s nobody with an opposing point of view to point it out, but on the other hand I have a lot of confidence in all three of your ability to recognize and remove slanted wording. I think this makes your involvement in the articles a lot more important now than it’s been in the past, and with Mathsci topic-banned as well as discretionary sanctions, the thing that’s been preventing your involvement there has been removed now.

I’m a little envious of you guys. You’re going to have the opportunity to experience an editing atmosphere on these articles that’s devoid of Mathsci’s personal attacks, which is not an opportunity that I’ve ever had. I hope you can appreciate how valuable that opportunity is, and make the most of it. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:23, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Inappropriate Talk: page comments

Just another day at the orifice.

"kindly get your heads out of whatever orifice you have them stuck in" is unacceptable language under any circumstances. Please redact that. Jayjg (talk) 22:38, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

The minute you and Lisa stop playing POV-pusher and start getting down to reasonable editing, I'll consider it. Otherwise it's an accurate description of your attitude and behavior. --Ludwigs2 22:46, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
WP:CIVIL isn't a matter of negotiation, it's policy; remove it please. Jayjg (talk) 22:48, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. I don't see this as uncivil; I see this as factually accurate. Colorful language, perhaps, but nowhere near unwarranted given your behavior on the page. wp:CIVIL is not intended to protect editors from justified criticism of their behavior.
If you don't like people thinking such things about you, I suggest that you cease in your efforts to defame an organization you dislike and start trying to edit with encyclopedic standards in mind. Do that, and we will have no further problems. If you cannot do that, please go find a partisan encyclopedia you can edit (they exist, yes, and you'll be happier there). --Ludwigs2 23:17, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
You think it is "factually accurate" that Lisa and I both have our heads stuck in some sort of "orifice"? What kind of "orifice" did you have in mind? Wouldn't that make it difficult to, for example, read a computer screen, and type responses? Not to mention breathe, etc.? Or do you perhaps you have a unique definition of "factually accurate"? Jayjg (talk) 23:43, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
factually accurate has a peculiar relationship to metaphorical statements: basically it means that the metaphor captures the nature of the focal situation succinctly and clearly. Human social behavior is usually better-captured through metaphor than mere description anyway - description lacks nuance, and fails utterly at the expression of relationships. I don't know about 'physically' factually accurate; I'd need to see some streaming video (or at least still images) to judge that, but I suspect it's not possible, and it would make no sense to think that you could accomplish daily tasks like editing wikipedia even if it were possible.
But you know, you impress me more by making reasonable suggestions on the talk page than by making irritable statements here. let's finish our discussion about the new lead, and if all goes well (as seems likely at the moment) then I'll remove the comment because it will no longer apply. --Ludwigs2 00:07, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas; you've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone. File this item under the subject of tolerance in the secular Jewish community: Ynet (a reliable secondary source) has a news item on Messianic Jews in today's edition. It says "They are Jews in every sense" and that some of them are Orthodox [2] harlan (talk) 07:49, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Not for this, it isn't. It's a reliable source to say that the author of that article thinks that. Ynet has no standing whatsoever when it comes to determining the status of MJs. Nor is it a Jewish group or movement. - Lisa (talk - contribs) 19:48, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Lisa - thanks for validating the position that I've been expressing all along. do you mind if I use this comment against you when I get a chance to return to the discussion? --Ludwigs2 20:11, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
You hardly need my permission for it. What gets posted on Wikipedia is public. Just curious, though. I have a magazine from the Larouchies that says Obama is like Hitler. Would you consider that a reliable source? It's published, and in very large numbers, I gather. Or would you say that it's only a reliable source for the fact that Larouchies are a bunch of morons? - Lisa (talk - contribs) 20:18, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Lisa, my point all along has been that where there is contention on a topic, we must attribute all claims properly. we can get away with loose attribution on non-contentious topics (for instance, we can usually say "the Theory of Gravity" without attributing it as "Newton's Theory of Gravity", because no one will generally care to object. However, Messianic Judaism is not a non-contentious topic, so making claims like "Messianic Jews are Christians" without attributing it to a source is improper. but I do't really want my talk page filled up with this silly argument, so let's take it back to the talk page were it belongs. --Ludwigs2 20:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:RD/L, Question Saving Fingering from the English Language

(Maybe you missed my reply to what you wrote there, so I copied it here, in the hope that it's good for a laugh ;-))

digital stimulation? I suppose you could pattern it after fellatio and call it 'digitio', but that sounds sort of like a pokemon creature. don't ask what its special attack is... --Ludwigs2 22:21, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Digitio's attack is the Killer poke. Its evolved forms are Duodigitio and Tresdigitio. Rule 34, no exceptions, mind you. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 20:41, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Reference desks

I hope you don't mind that I added your signature to this list. Regular doesn't mean frequent on a daily basis, nor does it mean with a fixed pattern (in other words, it doesn't mean regular). It just means editors who, time and again, help out at the desks. If you object to being on that list, revert immediately, of course. ---Sluzzelin talk 21:33, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

generally it's a bad idea to use someone else's signature - that can get you blocked if you do it in the wrong context. In the future, if you want to add someone to a list wither use a normal link to their talk page or ask them to sign themselves. I've done a correct sig. --Ludwigs2 22:34, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Oops, hmm, that page works differently. Been that way for quite a while. You're the first to protest (and also the first to add a timestamp. Look at all the others on that list.). The point of using sigs was recognizability (especially for those whose sig and user name aren't identical) not implying that those people signed. But point taken. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:06, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
yeah, sorry, I tend to run across some of the less savory elements on wikipedia, and it makes me a bit more watchful than most people. crap I've had to put up with you wouldn't believe... sig removed, and all is right with the world. --Ludwigs2 23:12, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
No, you do make a valid point. Perhaps we should clarify why we're using signatures. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:21, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi

Thanks for writing this. Please see my response to your point, be sure to read this
Regards  Jon Ascton  (talk) 22:05, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence

This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The following is a summary of the remedies enacted:

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee,

NW (Talk) 22:59, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Discuss this

proposal - need collab

I've invited a number of people to join at this thread, so thank you for looking. I'd like to develop something similar to wp:AWB, except PHP based (frankly, I'm starting this because I'm annoyed that there's no version of AWB that works on Macs). My idea is to create a separate user (much like a bot-account): people can navigate to that user's page, where they will find an assortment of HTML forms where they can perform AWB-like functions straight through wikipedia's servers. My problem is the learning curve - the PHP coding is not beyond me technically, but the project is too large for me to handle on my own, given my current informational deficit. I've contacted you (as a group) because you have worked on or developed PHP bot code, and will probably be much more 'up' on this problem than I am. what I need to know is the following:

  • Which of the various available bot frameworks is best suited to this task?
  • How difficult do you think this project will actually be?
  • What's the best approach (In your view) to achieving this?
  • What considerations am I missing? I'm already concerned about keeping this from turning into a vandalism tool, for instance, and about server resources (it would probably be best to have a system of queueing requests, which would help with both problems).

I'd also like to know if any of you are interested in collaborating on this project - that would make things a hell of a lot easier for me, and make development much faster. Please let me know. --Ludwigs2 06:09, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

User:Raul654/Raul's laws#Laws by others

See my recent addition of yours. You might like to reformat your name and/or rename the law. Peter jackson (talk) 15:06, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm out of town for the weekend so I can't give it much of a lookover yet, but from a quick glance I'd point out that the 20% figure was not meant to be analytical. If I were writing it to day I'd probably say something like 'a small bit significant minority'. I'll look at it more closely on tuesday.

Chinatown 1840s

Thanks for accepting my edit of SF Chinatown's correct establishment date of c.1840s. Why is it always so hard to accep such changes on Wikipedia, even when very reliable sources and detailed explanations are given? Regards, MM —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.115.155.107 (talk) 19:16, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

You ran into wp:pending changes, which holds edits by very new editors to be approved by others. it will pass if/when you get a few more edits under your belt. --Ludwigs2 20:04, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Gender question

Hi. In fringe talk you were uncertain what pronoun to use for Verbal. In the edit war that brought me to that page I guessed she (based on a talk page comment about taking time out to have a baby) and he rather tartly corrected us. Bn (talk) 21:34, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd kind of guessed that. wikipedia editors are overwhelmingly male; there's not a good gender distribution on project at all. but I hate to make assumptions on gender without due cause. --Ludwigs2 05:11, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Your name came up in a discussion - in a good way

Just thought you should be aware of this discussion in which you were mentioned. Cheers! -- Scray (talk) 15:57, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and thanks to both of you for helping cut through all the various clouds of confusion around here! So "cheers" all around! Wikiscient (talk) 17:02, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Removed your post at WT:RD

I removed your latest post to the RD talk page. We're not going to get into battles like that. I'll protect the page if I have to. Please keep your comments civil, no matter what the provocation. Regards. Franamax (talk) 22:55, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

If you like, I won't argue with it; though I suspect the reason you removed it has nothing to do with the reason you gave. It was a harsh statement, yes, but not precisely what would be called uncivil. Closer to morbid humor, really... Sometimes one needs to accept the worst potentials in a person if one wants them to make better of themselves. --Ludwigs2 23:04, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Comment on content, not the contributor. I don't think I actually gave a reason for the removal, but that would be it. We don't concern ourselves with motivations, only outcomes. And yes, I don't always follow that rule exactly... Franamax (talk) 23:14, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
point taken, and understood. apologies for stepping over the line. --Ludwigs2 23:40, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
  • About your comment on ANI, I'm satisfied with calling it a day as long as you realise what was wrong with that comment. A block now would be purely punitive anyway, but please don't make comments like that again. They don't help anybody and will end up getting you blocked. Find a more constructive way to work out your frustration. Best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:46, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Adminship

Hi! Since you have made so many edits to WP:AN/I, would you like me to nominate you for adminship? --The High Fin Sperm Whale 04:25, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

If you'd like; do you think that would be a good idea? I'd been considering opening an RfA myself, but was debating the response I'd get if I did. --Ludwigs2 05:09, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
On second thoughts, your your block log is still rather fresh, so I think I'll wait a while. --The High Fin Sperm Whale 18:05, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Probably for the best. --Ludwigs2 18:45, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Talkback regarding Template:infobox school district

Hello, Ludwigs2. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical).
Message added 16:25, 9 September 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thanks again!!! Wolfnix • Talk • 16:25, 9 September 2010 (UTC) Wolfnix • Talk • 16:25, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Of interest

I know you ideologically disagree with WP:FRINGE, but I think you and I agree on the principles I outline here: Wikipedia_talk:Fringe_theories#Notability_by_collection. Or maybe not. Anyway, having your input would be appreciated.

ScienceApologist (talk) 23:23, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw that, and I'm pondering it. I mostly agree, but I'm not sure quite what to do with it yet. by the way, I don't have an ideological disagreement with Fringe, just with (what strikes me as) editors who are too aggressive with the guideline. Fringe is useful, but like many useful things it can be abused. --Ludwigs2 01:19, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

{{hex2dec}} - issue

Resolved

Hi, the template you improved greatly has a newly discovered issue, non-hex value input. Maybe you can take a look. -DePiep (talk) 12:22, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Must say, I used your hex2dec (includig the shallow footprint) to wiki's profit & fun nicely in Template:unichar, eg because of its stable & predictable behaviour. Nice working with a tough thing. (I also stole some good ideas, like the prefix-check on 0x) I've put the green thing up here to freshen up this page and your day. OK. -DePiep (talk) 22:51, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Arguments to avoid

Please could you look at WP:VPP#Arguments to avoid and Wikipedia talk:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions#Just for deletion?. Simply south (talk) 00:25, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


Hi

I see you closed "No Kings" thread. Maybe you are right. Can you please make a closing remark where you write "..it's mere chitchat.." that in India, where OP is located, Native Indians are normally called Red Indians. This is necessary as one user suspects malice in usage of the term.  Jon Ascton  (talk) 16:32, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I didn't close it in favor of one side or another. I closed it because it was wandering off into casual discussion. I'll change the 'chitchat' wording, if you like, but I'm not going to use the closure to continue the argument. that would be improper. --Ludwigs2 16:41, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
You got me wrong, man. I didn't mean to continue this argument as I wholeheartedly agree with you that it is turning in to "chitchat" as you aptly called it. WikiDeo has already given me very valuable information on the topic, precisely what I was looking for, like the names of books especially. My concern was the simple fact that Red Indian is a term still used in India. It was only natural for me to use this term, this should be at least made clear, as one user has expressed suspicion that I maybe trolling (he is not used to its usage, which is natural for you Westerners, but we in India use it exclusively to refer to so-called Indians of Americas ) Thanks  Jon Ascton  (talk) 17:53, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
The more conventional terms (as I suspect you know by now) are 'Native American' or 'American Indian'. That being said, however, I don't believe that this is something you need to defend yourself against, and I don't believe this is something worth continuing the argument over. In case you hadn't noticed, there are a number of people - myself included - who feel that you are engaged in some mild-mannered trolling. If you're not, and you want to prove to us that you're not, then the best thing you can do is to accept the misperception for the moment and make some efforts to behave in ways that other people see as upright and responsible. If you keep doing the things that lead people to think you're trolling (e.g., asking nebulous questions and then drawing out arguments over them to the very last detail) then people will continue to think you are trolling. if you stop doing those things, everyone will forget about it and treat you like an upright citizen (after a while, at any rate).
It's not important so let it go. 'k? --Ludwigs2 18:01, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Agreed.  Jon Ascton  (talk) 03:49, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

On Kundalini Yoga...

Ludwig, thanks for coming in an helping out with a look at Kundalini Yoga!!

Can you please please please explain to gatoclass that he cannot just make stuff up as a basis for his constant reversions??? He has never once contributed to this article, and I have no clue what-so-ever as to where he gets this information he claims to use as a reason for undoing my updates.

I am totally open to making this article better, but gatoclass is just such a HUGE hindrance at every level of this page. Please keep helping!! I had to re-do his undo again today, and it's just not helping to always have to go back to some historic version from months ago just because what is up there doesn't line up with this guys totally fictional world. RogerThatOne72 (talk) 19:40, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Mountainizing molehills

Hi Ludwigs2. I really had no idea that I'd been mountainizing molehills lately. I was all for getting to the bottom of and closing the discussion around Jon's imprecisely worded "No Kings" question. (I said things like "I really see no reason at all for the amount of disagreement in this thread" and "Aye gods it just goes on and on. <sigh>" -- and that one even ran onto my talk page before getting resolved!). So I wasn't too sure what you meant, actually. And I know I am new to the RD, which is a bit different than the rest of WP in a lot of ways, so I still do not have a reliable sense of how things work best there. Attempts I have made on the RD talk page to understand better the workings of things there have so far seemed to come to a satisfactory close before too long. But I do not want by any means to be at serious odds with you at all, Ludwigs2, so if I become bothersome in some way which I may not be aware of there, please certainly let me know! Regards :), WikiDao ☯ (talk) 03:02, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

re your comment on WP:RSN

Thanks for your comment. I agree with you on the principles, but you are also repeating as fact some stuff that is a bit off, and this same (or similar) background opinion has colored the interactions of many editors on this. Rather than take up space on WP:RSN, I'll answer you here on that, and cite this there for anyone interested. I hope this is okay with you. To respond to impressions such as yours can take a lot of words; I apologize for the length. You have no obligation to reply or even to read this. It's just in case you are interested to see if you are holding some misconceptions. Feel free to ask questions of me, here or on my Talk page, I can source any assertions I make, if needed. If I've written too much and you'd like me to summarize, I'll do that, too. I just don't have time to do it tonight.

Changing the temperature at which fusion occurs would be a major scientific advancement, if possible, and no scientist would sneer at the idea if someone managed to do it.

  • Nobody has "changed the temperature which fusion occurs." First of all, what is "fusion?" There are different kinds of fusion. The assumption in 1989 was that, if cold fusion was real, it would be deuterium-deuterium fusion, but this presented a huge mystery, because the experiments were totally missing the expected signs of d-d fusion, and, indeed, the "cross-section" for d-d fusion at room temperature is ridiculously low. The density of deuterium in palladium can become extremely high, but it is still way below what might be expected to raise the fusion cross-section to something observable. However, fusion cross section depends on the exact conditions, and one form of low-temperature fusion was already known, and was the first to be called "cold fusion." This is Muon-catalyzed fusion. So what some thought was that what Pons and Fleischmann had discovered was some other kind of catalyzed fusion, but with the same basic result, i.e., two deuterons fuse. Just, say, catalyzed by something else. This is, for other reasons, very improbable. To make a long story short, Storms is aware that nobody knows, still, what mechanism is involved. However, there are plausible theories, he says, which is a major difference from 1989.
  • To summarize the rest, it is known, and Storms covers the evidence, that reactions of the kind discovered by P&F are producing heat and helium correlated with each other, at about the right value for deuterium fusion. But the actual mechanism is almost certainly not ordinary deuterium fusion, it just happens to accomplish a similar result. It is probably, Storms thinks, some kind of more complex cluster fusion, and this is now more or less mainstream in the field. (And there are peer-reviewed sources on it, including another paper in Naturwissenschaften).
  • But what it is isn't important, because we really don't know. What is important, at this point, is what does the confirmed and reliable experimental record show? And what it shows is helium and heat correlated. The first secondary source I have on this is Huizenga, surprisingly enough. This was the very skeptical co-chair of the 1989 U.S. Department of Energy review of cold fusion, and in the second edition of his book (1993), he comments on the published work of Miles, on the heat/helium correlation, and writes that this, "if confirmed" would solve a major mystery of cold fusion. Storms in his recent paper reviews the evidence on this, as he did before in his book (2007), also independently published. His review is careful and clear. He doesn't present heat/helium as speculation or unclear, because it isn't any more, it has been heavily confirmed. There are other secondary source reviews on this. This isn't some new report.
  • Yet people sneered at it and continue to sneer at it, but the sneers aren't passing peer review any more, and haven't been for many years. There are about fifteen other peer-reviewed secondary sources since 2005 that are quite in line with the Storms review, you can see them at Wikiversity:Cold fusion/Recent sources. Lest you think this is cherry-picked, this list is almost entirely from the Dieter Britz bibliography, which is referenced. Britz is a skeptical electrochemist, nobody who knows the field would accuse him of cherry-picking.
  • The skeptics on Wikipedia, none of whom know the literature, as far as I've been able to tell, with the exception of the other COI editor bsides myself -- who is a very heavily dedicated skeptic, he's been active as such since the early 1990s -- have been aware of the other reviews, but the material was always excluded on the argument that the authors were fringe or the journals not the most important ones. When I pointed out the recent Naturwissenschaften Review (this isn't presented as an editorial or a piece on a controversy), they again said the same thing. Storms is "fringe." He's a "supporter." As if you'd want a deep review of the field written by someone with no experience in it! I can tell you, I see stuff written by "supporters" who don't understand all the aspects of the field with the depth that Storms does.

The problematical aspects of the cold fusion debate occurred because a couple of scientists (whose names I forget) jumped to publication before they had all their facts in line, and then a whole bunch of 'popular press' and 'conspiracy theory' types jumped on the (unwittingly flawed) research.

  • P&F, of course. No, they didn't exactly jump to publication, they were not ready to publish, and they knew it. However, the University of Utah legal counsel required them to announce, for legal reasons relating to patents, this is all well-documented, and people went ape over the news. It's said that half the discretionary research budget of the U.S., for a few months, went into trying to replicate their work. But ... even P&F didn't understand yet how to do it reliably! When they ran out of the original batch of palladium, they couldn't get it to work themselves for a while. Eventually, in the field, it was found how to make palladium rod that would show the effect, but that took, perhaps, the better part of a decade. Nanostructure. There is, now, absolutely no mystery as to why most early replication efforts failed.
  • But ... Fleischmann's calorimetry, the core of his report, was apparently good. He had found excess heat, at levels that, as one of the world's foremost electrochemists, he could not explain except through a nuclear process. What process? He later said that it was a mistake to have ever suggested that it was fusion. He didn't have sufficient evidence for that. (And his actual publication correctly referred to a hypothesized "unknown nuclear reaction.") It was an easy mistake to make, though. So easy that almost all the contemptuous skeptical rejection was based on an assumption that, if it was a nuclear reaction, it must be d-d fusion, and don't these idiots know that's impossible? They were (probably) right. It was (probably) impossible. But P&F were not idiots, they were not frauds, and they were not incompetent.
  • As to "popular press" and "conspiracy types," there was, in effect, a kind of "conspiracy" that developed, but it was right out in the open. The major journals announced a policy that they would no longer accept papers on cold fusion. Even though, in fact, there remained serious mysteries to be explained. A grad student in Texas found that the extensive work he'd done under the supervision of Brockris (another major electrochemist working on cold fusion) was considered useless, because it must be a mistake, since, after all, cold fusion was impossible .... he had to redo his thesis on some new topic. And when that got around, there went the major source of labor for replication and new research, grad students. This is all well documented, Ludwigs2. It's not a "conspiracy theory." I could go on and on....
  • Remarkably, someone like David Goodstein of Caltech writes about this whole affair as demonstrating pathological science, and from the rest of his writings, and from his explicit language, it's clear he's talking about some people on "both sides" of this, and that he considers the matter unresolved, but the skeptics here quote him as if it were proof that "cold fusion," per se, is "pathological science." For years, now, sources have been interpreted out of context, often by editors who don't understand them. The same is true with the study by Bart Simon, the sociologist who wrote Undead Science, about cold fusion and its "afterlife." Simon published in 2002, Rutgers University Press, before what I've been saying was the turning point (roughly 2004 or 2005). But I'm not trying to put this "turning point" into the article, because it is my own original research; I can document it very well, but this hasn't been published and reviewed.... I do understand Wikipedia standards, and I support them. Completely.

A scientist who can get an article published in a peer-reviewed journal is not dismissible simply because he's working in a topic area that has suffered setbacks. Scientists are constantly revisiting outmoded ideas to see if there's anything of value that new technology and methods can dig out of them. This is a normal part of the scientific process, and the fact that a team of other scientists reviewed the article and didn't find it wanting is sufficient indication that the research is acceptable scientific research.

  • I agree with this completely.

wp:Fringe only enters into this debate to keep Wikipedia editors from using that (perfectly reliable) scientific article to make claims about the topic or the state of the discipline that the article in no way can or would support. One article does not mean a revival of the concept, but just that there's still some scientific interest in the idea. It's just a matter of balance: does this article add anything of significance to the discussion without unduly skewing the perception of the topic?

  • Right. One article would not. But there is not just one article, there is the entire weight of publication since 2005.
  • 2007 was still at roughly the nadir on CF publications, there were six papers (and one major book). The papers are all peer-reviewed, the book, by Storms, was published by World Scientific, not a fringe publisher, and there is a very good review of this book by Sheldon, published in a physics journal. Three of these papers and the book are reviews of the field. The book is the best comprehensive review of the field to date, nothing comparable has been published, ever, that covered the science like this. There are "skeptical" books, the only ones that went into the science as distinct from the politics was the careful review by Nate Hoffman, published in 1995, and the polemic by Huizenga, 1992 and 1993. The recent review by Storms is more thorough than the book in some narrow areas, but it is the same basic material.
  • In 2008, 22 papers. 6 are reviews.
  • In 2009, 25 papers. However, 18 papers were published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, which specifically covers "neglected fields." I haven't considered those papers. Two of them are from Scott Little, who is sometimes considered skeptical, but, in my opinion, he has done some careful work which casts into doubt some cold fusion research. But he's published nothing under mainstream peer review, which is, in my opinion, unfortunate. There were three mainstream reviews in 2009.
  • In 2010, 18 papers in 3/4 of the year. 3 were reviews. One paper, by Shanahan, was published as a response to a review by Marwan and Krivit the previous year, copublished with a response, not by Marwan and Krivit, but by Marwan and a series of eight other well-known and widely published scientists in the field (including Storms). Shanahan has complained, on his talk page here, that the journal (JEM) won't let him respond again. Which is pretty much what I'd expect. His criticisms have become fringe, he is being treated like "cold fusion authors" were in the early 1990s and beyond, for over ten years. Nobody accepts Shanahan's theories, they are not being cited except as footnotes rejecting them.
  • All the reviews are positive on cold fusion. Shanahan could be considered a review, of sorts, but was really an attempt to impeach an earlier review, and, clearly, the editors didn't think he was successful! Indeed, it looks like they were using him as a device to challenge popular conceptions by presenting his views as thoroughly refuted. He is more or less complaining that they were fooled, and he's said the same thing about the editors of Naturwissenschaften.
  • Now, would I try to put this in the article? Certainly not! But ... what I'm saying is that the assumption that Cold fusion is "fringe," if "fringe" refers to informed expert opinion, isn't sustainable any more. We need to use the balance of publication in peer-reviewed secondary sources, which now could imply almost excluding the skeptical position, as to recent science. Don't worry, there is plenty of room for the history of this field and all the condemnation of it as pathological science and the like! There remains a little recent reliable source claiming that "most scientists" still reject cold fusion, but these are shallow, with no specific evidence, these are, apparently, just opinions that continue to be held by some without review of actual evidence. But RS is RS, as to the history and what some think about it. For the science, though, what are the notable theories? There are a number of them, found in peer reviewed secondary sources, missing from the article. What is the main evidence that the reaction is some kind of fusion, if not d-d fusion? It's missing from the article even though amply covered in the sources. Lots of this stuff has been put in the article over the years, but it was always taken out as "undue weight," because, after all, this is "fringe," leaving the article with, say, a section on "proposed theories" that only mentions one: that the whole thing was experimental error. Which is based on no peer-reviewed secondary source reviews at all. Just casual mention in articles generally on other subjects.
  • I think you may have seen some of this in other fields. I'm certainly aware that the issue of "fringe" sourcing is much wider than cold fusion! This is how I've understood the proper handling of it:
  • Wikipedia requires that each article be NPOV; however, if the article is on a fringe topic, and if this is placed in context such that it is clear that the topic and the sources are not generally accepted, facts which are reliably sourced and which are stated in a balanced way, about "fringe opinion," or "reports that might seem to confirm fringe opinion," will not create undue weight. In an article on Flat Earth theory, it is not necessary to state, with every sentence, "But this is not accepted by most scientists." I have a pile of books on Cold fusion, by skeptics, by "supporters," and even at least one where the author was truly neutral. They cover the history of the "scientific fiasco of the century," as Huizenga called it, and that view just might turn out to be prophetic. Just not in quite the way he thought! If we were to try to stuff into the article all the notable and verifiable facts, covered in reliable sources, that I have multiple sources for, there would be almost no way to balance it properly. Rather, it's going to take a series of articles, I'm sure, with a summary article referring to each of the subarticles in summary style. Because some considered cold fusion inherently "fringe," reasonable forks were deleted or redirected back to cold fusion, causing the skeptic User:Kirk shanahan (the published author) to believe that the creation of a fork, which allowed his theories to be covered (they are the most notable criticism of CF calorimetry, out of balance in the full article, but quite in place in a specialized subarticle), was a deliberate trick to keep his material out. No, it was an editor trying to help him, but that editor then came under attack and was banned. And the fork was deleted as if it were his creation as a POV fork, practically the opposite of the intention.... The whole story of the cold fusion article on Wikipedia is horrific.

Thanks again for your comment. --Abd (talk) 02:17, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

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