User talk:XOR'easter/2020b

Yapperbot - Uncurrenter

Hi XOR'easter (love the name, btw!) - hope you're doing well :)

Just wanted to drop you a message about my bot, Yapperbot, and its "Uncurrenter" task of removing {{current}} templates from articles that haven't been edited in a significant amount of time, as I'd noticed you'd been undoing the bot's edits on Capital Hill Autonomous Zone.

The bot isn't doing this to say "this event is not current", just that {{current}} is no longer needed on the article. Per the documentation for {{current}}, the template may optionally be used in those extraordinary occasions that many editors (perhaps a hundred or more) edit an article on the same day, for example, in the case of natural disasters or other breaking news. It is not intended to be used to mark an article that merely has recent news articles about the topic; if it were, hundreds of thousands of articles would have this template, with no informational consequence.

I hope that's helpful - please let me know if you have any questions!

Cheers, Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 19:38, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The event that the article describes is still ongoing and actively developing, on a day-to-day (though probably not hour-to-hour) basis. Moreover, it has been the subject of media disinformation, as the article documents. It is therefore prudent to expect that initial reports of any further developments will be incomplete or biased. The "current event" tag is appropriate, even if editing happens to cool off overnight. XOR'easter (talk) 19:49, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

7quark

Hi,

I hope you are doing well in these days! I have just written the article on heptaquark. It is a stub but still interesting and important. May you please review it?

Best regards! Lamro (talk) 09:38, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

DS Alert

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 07:23, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Help needed with List of American Academy of Arts and Sciences members

So I made a page for List of American Academy of Arts and Sciences members. The page was very long and I broke it down into years just like you did for List_of_American_Physical_Society_Fellows. I have got all the data on to Wikipedia. Now I need some help with making wikilinks. Any easy way for this? Can you help in putting the Wikilinks in the article? HRShami (talk) 06:01, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, might be a bit tricky. I generated the other list using a Python script that put in the wikilinks to begin with, rather than adding them after. I'll see what I can do, but I'm a bit scatterbrained this week, so it might be delayed. Thanks for letting me know! XOR'easter (talk) 15:16, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

OK, done. XOR'easter (talk) 00:43, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Key Bus Routes

Sorry, I got confused and my edit summary wasn't right. It's ref 3 that I was thinking of. Ref 1 consistently uses caps for "Key Bus Routes", but that's not what the changes were about, so not so relevant. Dicklyon (talk) 00:03, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I would count 'Failure' …

a success, thanks to your recent edits! Have enjoyed tag-teaming this one. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 05:18, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Glad to help! XOR'easter (talk) 05:21, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for July 21

An automated process has detected that you recently added links to disambiguation pages.

List of American Academy of Arts and Sciences members (1994 - 2005)

added links pointing to Richard Hamilton, Christian Wolff, George Papanicolaou, Chen Yi, George Mitchell, James Wright, Charles Johnson, William Kennedy, Tim O'Brien, John Browne, Michael Lynch, Jay Wright, David Ward, John Reid, Charles Wright, Peter Nicholas, David Walker, Richard White, Mervyn King, Joshua Cohen, James Carroll, James A. Johnson, Peter Evans, John Walsh, Donald Graham, Mark Morris, Nancy Hopkins, Michael Levine, Gary King, Jonathan Brown, James Webster, Michael Woodford, Peter Carey, Michael Wood, Thomas Crow, Thomas Spencer, Michael Friedman, John H. Baker, Martin Saunders, Jan de Vries, Susan Stewart, David Ferry, Richard Rose, Ann Douglas, David Collier, William Fulton, Niels Hansen, Robert Israel, Richard Kramer, Thomas Bender, John Aldrich, Frederick Cooper and David Ginsburg

List of American Academy of Arts and Sciences members (2006 - 2019)

added links pointing to Kathleen Kennedy, Robert Wilson, John Clarke, Johan van Benthem, James Wood, Mary Beard, James McBride, Tod Williams, Bill Brown, John Broome, Karen Davis, David Hare, Michael McCormick, David de Rothschild, James Leach, Robert Rosenthal, Philip Fisher, Vladimir Rokhlin, David Baker, Diana Taylor, Elizabeth Alexander, Mark Gertler, Leif Andersson, Jonathan Gruber, Joy Williams, John Guy, Richard Durbin, Mark Johnston, Gerhard Wagner, Daniel Rose, Adam Roberts, Kathleen McCartney, Jack Knight, Luigi Rizzi, John E. Jackson, Jonathan Levin, James Clifford, Stanley Fields, Eiichi Nakamura, Alan Gilbert, Rakesh Agrawal, Michael Snyder, James A. Robinson, Desmond King, Heinrich von Staden, Tom Curran, Debraj Ray, Mark Rosenzweig, Melissa Moore, David Fitzpatrick, Michael Blackwood and Michael Kearns

List of American Academy of Arts and Sciences members (1953 - 1993)

added links pointing to George Putnam, Julius Adler, Robert Campbell, Michael Cole, Jack Lewis, Samuel Preston, Neil Harris, Robert Bird, Thomas Dunne, William Browder, Sigurdur Helgason, Marc Davis, Peter Brooks and Denis Donoghue

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:13, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't see it.

Talk:Howard B. Meek/GA1 to me reveals 2.0% on Earwig. The article became a Did You Know back on 27 August 2017. It is the same article. Do you have suggestions on what would be correct phrasing for The school grew to an alumnus of three thousand that respected Meek as a hotel professor)? Thanks. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 10:37, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Where are you seeing 2.0%? I'm seeing 51.9%, copied from a document written in 1969. XOR'easter (talk) 15:55, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Nope, not copied! Take a closer look at the Earwig reading and you will see all the other comparisosn are 2% or less. What's showing up in the PDF is similar information as what I have written, because the PDF is a biography. Check all the red lines and you will see they are all titles and names. That's something you can't prevent because you have to use the SAME exact name or title. Now what is more important is that the article was a Did You Know on 27 August 2017. It's the same article with the same wording of those names and titles. That important because it has been looked over by many top editors during this Did You Know process. They all realized this about the same name/title and have approved the article as having a 2% Earwig reading. If there was the slightest thing wrong with that they would have spoken up in 2017 long BEFORE it came out on Wikipedia's main page. It was viewed by a thousand people and nobody said a thing wrong about it. I have created 500 Did You Knows and 50 Good Articles, so have an idea how this goes. Would you reconsider reviewing the article to see what it takes to become a Good Article? Thanks.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 17:06, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, copied. Phrases like internationally known as the leading educator in the hospitality industry are far too long, specific and opinionated to be rote facts that don't admit much variation. You're welcome to ask someone else for a second opinion, but mine stands. XOR'easter (talk) 17:27, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

O.K. I'll ask someone else to do the Good Article review. I'll renominate it. Please don't interfere and just let another editor do it on their own with their own opinion. I'm willing to take my chances with a random editor selection (whoever is next). Thanks for your cooperation. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 18:28, 22 July 2020 (UTC).

Well, I looked back at my Talk page and saw your reply after adding some clarification tags. Hopefully they at least make clear what I think needs making more clear. Good luck. XOR'easter (talk) 18:50, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Links to DAB pages

It would be helpful if you could check your bluelinks before posting. It has taken me three hours spread over two days to repair the best part of a hundred in List of American Academy of Arts and Sciences members (1994 - 2005). Narky Blert (talk) 16:09, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for making more work for you — I had hoped that the number of dab links introduced wouldn't be too large, and that I could get to them in the next few days. There isn't really a way to identify which text strings point to dab pages without making them into links, that I know of, so the amount of time necessary to fix them up probably can't be reduced too far. XOR'easter (talk) 17:38, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Believe me, there are plenty of more problems with those lists, inherited from the source material — erratic inclusion of initials, typos, duplications, etc. — and manual checking is unhappily unavoidable. I'll be taking thwacks at that for a while. Sorry again! XOR'easter (talk) 17:55, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for July 28

An automated process has detected that you recently added links to disambiguation pages.

List of American Academy of Arts and Sciences members (2006 - 2019)

added links pointing to Robert Wilson, John Clarke, Johan van Benthem, James McBride, John Broome, David Hare, Michael McCormick, Vladimir Rokhlin, John Guy, Richard Durbin, Mark Johnston, Gerhard Wagner, Daniel Rose, Adam Roberts, Kathleen McCartney, Jack Knight, Luigi Rizzi, Jonathan Levin, Stanley Fields, Alan Gilbert, Rakesh Agrawal, Michael Snyder, James A. Robinson, Desmond King, Tom Curran, Debraj Ray, Mark Rosenzweig, Melissa Moore, David Fitzpatrick and Michael Kearns

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:26, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Review

Hi

I hope you are doing well in these days. May you please review the following short articles: minimon, maximon, and paraphoton? I have translated them from the Russian wiki and added many sources to support notability.

Best regards from sunny Moscow! 07:52, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Too much talking?

I was hoping to use the latest push-back at Planck units as a clear-cut example of failing the last three of the four bulleted abilities at WP:CIR, but with the continued interaction the lack of conciseness of the example may make an admin's assessment more difficult. —Quondum 00:28, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

@Quondum: I was thinking of making a reply to the effect that in Gaussian units, capacitance is measured in centimeters, but we still don't use capacitors as rulers. Or, less flippantly, the units of action (energy × time) are the same as those of angular momentum (mass × length × velocity), but we can't just treat any arbitrary quantity of angular momentum as an action or vice versa. But I've given up hope of having a productive conversation, or even that any interesting physics will be touched upon tangentially. I get the feeling that if I say something brief, they'll say I didn't provide enough detail, whereas if I leave a lengthy comment, I'll be told that I'm deviating from the point. I will probably say nothing, unless I am prompted further in a serious way, and even then I might wait a while. (Plenty of other writing tasks are on my plate.) So, do what you feel is best. XOR'easter (talk) 01:40, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I think your implicit logic is flawed. I see a complete imperviousness to logic, which means that any attempt at explanation is futile, and I was wondering what you were hoping to achieve by your ongoing replies. I was thinking of asking an admin to block them as not displaying the necessary competencies. I've seen this done before. —Quondum 01:55, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Oh, I always let pointless conversations go on too long. (Well, maybe not "always", but definitely too often.) It's a character flaw on my part. I suppose it's a subset of my more general inability to manage my time very well! Sometimes I feel like I have to explain things for people who might be lurking without commenting, and sometimes I just end up writing more than I need while thinking a point through, and I post it instead of filing it away for a more productive occasion. I have to shake myself and remember that nobody lies on their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time arguing about Planck units. XOR'easter (talk) 02:09, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Wow, they're still at it. And of all the accusations to make, a lack of willingness to engage in a discussion is perhaps the most absurd — the discussion has already gone on for pages too long! The physics of their text is also wrong; for example, saying This is the most extreme example possible of the uncertainty principle confuses the actual uncertainty principle with generalizations/modifications thereof. I'd definitely call their actions WP:OWN behavior by this point. XOR'easter (talk) 17:07, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

You must be the most laid-back person ever – a master of understatement, levels of patience that I would never expect from a human, wry humour... Let's wait to see whether my (none-too-coherent) request will be answered.

Unrelated: from your insider viewpoint, how do you think the collapse/noncollapse quantum interpretation splits amongst well-qualified physicists whose expertise includes quantum physics? I perceive the one crowd to be more vocal on WP. —Quondum 19:25, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

The other day, when my schedule started filling up, I made a deliberate choice that if I had Wikipedia time, I'd spend as much of it as possible working on starting new biography articles. That way, I can feel like I'm making constructive contributions rather than just squabbling behind the scenes. And, if I'm in a better mood overall, then maybe my contributions behind the scenes won't be too snippy — that's the hope, anyway!

On your unrelated question: my very informal sense is that the more knowledgeable the people are, the less agreement you'll find among them. Within quantum foundations, the people who are seriously into no-collapse interpretations each have their own way of (for example) deriving the Born rule, and the people who advocate a interpretation with collapse have their own particulars to disagree about. (And when "collapse" is part of the story, it's something akin to a Bayesian update of statistical information about a system, not a psychic influence on properties of the system itself.) Quantum gravity has a larger proportion of no-collapse advocates than quantum information or the quantum foundations community, but also more people willing to say that quantum mechanics must itself be modified in some way. Bohmian mechanics is more popular among philosophers than among physicists. All very informal impressions, of course! XOR'easter (talk) 20:25, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I would suggest confining your time where it is most rewarding (and valuable) – a lot of the negative stuff can be left to proceed in the wrong way for a while.

I was hoping to hear otherwise about quantum experts – that the more rational group had greater consensus about an interpretation. But it fits with my belief in human irrationality. I guess I have my own views (firmly with Everett), but I'm neither trained nor, in all likelihood, any more rational than the next guy. Ah, well, I'm digressing. —Quondum 21:22, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Observer QM

@XOR'easter: Hey there. I'm seeking to improve the observer QM page by representing both sides of the debate about observers. There is a sizable minority of physicists who hold the view that observers must be conscious. I'd like to work with you to put this into the appropriate language and synthesize the original article with the additions I've made. Looking forward to working with you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dienekles (talk • contribs)

Hi. It sounds like what you are trying to do is to write an essay that presents an original synthesis, which is not what Wikipedia is for. In addition, you are blending together proposals that are actually very different; for example, Donald's "many minds" interpretation is explicitly Everettian, which is diametrically opposed to Fuchs' QBism. Likewise, one should not unquestioningly propagate the idea that there is a single, unified, well-defined "Copenhagen interpretation" [1][2][3]. Cheers, XOR'easter (talk) 15:45, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: You are correct on the essay. I wanted to get all the material down in one place and then work with the community to slim it down to the key points. I'd say I'm guilty of undue weight also, but this is not a synthesized position. This a legitimate minority viewpoint held by the academic community. To represent it as merely "a number of new-age religious or philosophical views" is highly preferential. This material should be presented as it is: a minority position which also has formalisms and experimental data supporting it. Perhaps in the "criticism" section, it could be noted that the legitimate work done by physicists regarding the models of "consciousness causes collapse" has been co-opted by "new-age religious and philosophical" thinkers to include many conclusions not drawn by physicists themselves. However, the whole issue should not be dismissed out of hand a just being the viewpoint of a bunch of crackpots. That's entirely inaccurate.

@XOR'easter: So, can we work together to change the language and include the legitimate academic material on this topic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dienekles (talk • contribs)

I'd agree that the article as it currently stands is not in outstanding shape, but your proposed changes are, it seems to me, starting from a flawed premise. You are combining ideas that are not the same in order to advance a position. That's synthesis. For example, QBism is very very different from "consciousness causes collapse" as attributed to von Neumann and Wigner. Likewise, Rovelli's relational quantum mechanics does not have a distinguished role for conscious observers; in Rovelli's view, any physical system can be an "observer" of any other. (To quote Bas van Fraassen's review of it, "Observer" does not have connotations of humanity or consciousness here—each system provides its own frame of reference relative to which states and values can be assigned.) Nor are experimental demonstrations of (possibly counterintuitive) quantum phenomena evidence of a role for human consciousness specifically.

In the future, please sign your comments by typing four tildes (~~~~), which automatically inserts your user name and the timestamp of your contribution. Cheers, XOR'easter (talk) 19:35, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

(Pinging Jasper Deng, who also reverted your changes and who might have comments.) XOR'easter (talk) 19:53, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: This is good feedback. We still have the P.A.U. by JA Wheeler, QBism, and Many Minds. There are also several opinion pieces and excerpts from books by mainline physicists which were inclined to the consciousness causes collapse model.

On QBism, the update in knowledge only occurs on the part of a subjective observer. "Quantum Bayesianism (QBism) [...] treats the wave function as a description of a single observer’s subjective knowledge." https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-bayesianism-explained-by-its-founder-20150604/

Dr. Matthew Donald has a Ph.D. in Mathematics, or more specifically, a Ph.D. in the mathematical models in quantum field theory. He is currently residing at Cambridge University as a professor. His Many Minds hypotheses is similar: "Observations are relative to individual observers. ‘Worlds’ are distinguished at the level of the minds of individual observers. Alice has her observations and Bob has his. Avoiding solipsism requires that we assign consciousness (or reality) to everyone we could meet who is sufficiently similar to ourselves. So Alice should assign reality to each of Bob's possible futures, and, by symmetry, to each of her own.” http://people.bss.phy.cam.ac.uk/~mjd1014/

Also, we have this article arguing for a mind-only universe written by Dr. Henry Stapp (a theoretical physicist at the University of California's Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, with a PhD in the mathematical and logical foundations of quantum mechanics) and Dr Menas C. Kafatos (a highly distinguished Ph.D. in Physics from the MIT): “One of the keys to our argument for a mental world is the contention that only conscious observers can perform measurements.” We can cite blogs, as long as it is clear that it is the opinion of that authors: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/coming-to-grips-with-the-implications-of-quantum-mechanics

So, this isn't just an opinion held by "new-age religious believers". Dr. Andrei Dmitriyevich Linde is a Russian-American with a PhD in theoretical physics. He is the Harald Trap Friis Professor of Physics at Stanford University. Linde is one of the main authors of the inflationary universe theory, as well as the theory of eternal inflation and inflationary multiverse. In one of his books he adds: “The universe and the observer exist as a pair. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of the universe that ignores consciousness.” Biocentrism Pg. 178

Dr. Robert Dicke, an American astronomer and physicist with a PhD in nuclear physics - an Albert Einstein Professor in Science at Princeton University for 10+ years - who made important contributions to the fields of astrophysics, atomic physics, cosmology and gravity had this to say:“If you want an observer around, and if you want life, you need heavy elements. To make heavy elements out of hydrogen, you need thermonuclear combustion. To have thermonuclear combustion, you need a time of cooking in a star of several billion years. In order to stretch out several billion years in its time dimension, the universe, according to general relativity, must be several years across in its space dimensions. So why is the universe as big as it is? Because we are here!” https://futurism.com/john-wheelers-participatory-universe

So, I'm not making this up nor synthesizing this. This is a legitimate opinion held within the community. On evidence for the above. We also have Delayed Choice experiments, which would be supportive of P.A.U via Wheeler, from both 2007 & 2017. That's not a synthesis. They directly say it is confirmatory of Wheeler's ideas:

1. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/315/5814/966

2. www.cosmosmagazine.com/physics/light-bounced-off-satellites-confirms-quantum-weirdness/

On the Wigner's Friend paradox, there is now an experimental rebuttal that this is actually a paradox. This was significantly debunked in 2020: “Now Tischler and her colleagues have carried out a version of the Wigner’s friend test. By combining the classic thought experiment with another quantum head-scratcher called entanglement—a phenomenon that links particles across vast distances—they have also derived a new theorem, which they claim puts the strongest constraints yet on the fundamental nature of reality. Their study, which appeared in Nature Physics on August 17, has implications for the role that consciousness might play in quantum physics—and even whether quantum theory must be replaced.” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/this-twist-on-schroedingers-cat-paradox-has-major-implications-for-quantum-theory/

So, the claim that there is no experimental evidence is now out of date as well. That's not a synthesis either. I'm not claiming all these people are saying the exact same thing in terms of their overall theoretical constructions - which would be a synthetic position - but they are saying that consciousness causes collapse. Dienekles (talk) 18:15, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

A laboratory implementation of a delayed-choice experiment is not the same thing as confirming Wheeler's most speculative speculations about its implications. The (drastically overhyped) implementation of a Wigner's-friend variation used photons to stand in for the friends and says nothing directly about consciousness. To quote the Scientific American story you cited, “We don’t want to overclaim what we have done,” [Tischler] says. The key for future experiments will be scaling up the size of the “friend,” adds team member Howard Wiseman, a physicist at Griffith University. [...] “I don’t think I will live to see an experiment like this,” Wiseman says. Matthew Donald says that "many minds" interpretations are "no collapse" interpretations [4]. His website declares up front, Many-minds interpretations of quantum theory are many-worlds interpretations in which it is argued that the distinction between worlds should be made at the level of the structure of the individual observer. And many-worlds interpretations are by their very nature interpretations where "collapse" is only apparent, not actual. Dicke's statement is about the apparent fine-tuning of physical constants, a whole kettle of fish unto itself, and drawing any connection between that and wavefunction collapse is synthesis (Futurism is a random website, not a peer-reviewed academic publication, so its mentioning them together is not meaningful). If you dig up the original source of the Linde quotation, it's from a 2002 article in Discover magazine that says Wheeler believed consciousness was not necessary:

Wheeler likes to use the example of a high-energy particle released by a radioactive element like radium in Earth's crust. The particle, as with the photons in the two-slit experiment, exists in many possible states at once, traveling in every possible direction, not quite real and solid until it interacts with something, say a piece of mica in Earth's crust. When that happens, one of those many different probable outcomes becomes real. In this case the mica, not a conscious being, is the object that transforms what might happen into what does happen. The trail of disrupted atoms left in the mica by the high-energy particle becomes part of the real world. [emphasis added]

As for QBism, luckily, I have at hand my copy of Chris Fuchs' Coming of Age with Quantum Information. He writes,

To think that it would first require a theory of consciousness before we could do quantum cosmology (or any physics at all) in the Bayesian style is just a bunch of malarkey. That's no more true than saying we would need a theory of consciousness before we could open a gambling house in the state of New Mexico.

And, elsewhere,

You're right, I never do refer to "consciousness." [...] I don't even really have an interest in what it means. So I would hope that I'm not trying to build a picture of the world based on it—I don't think I am.

Fuchs also writes that he is willing to take "measurement" as a primitive of quantum theory but downplays the specialness of humankind, saying that artificially intelligent Dell laptop computers would be among the entities that could use wavefunctions. Granted, most of the material in Coming of Age dates back to a time before the development of QBism proper, but nothing since that point has made QBism sound any more like the "consciousness causes collapse" notion attributed to Wigner. As I mentioned in the section above, there's a drastic difference between something akin to a Bayesian update of statistical information about a system, and a psychic influence on properties of the system itself.

Cheers, XOR'easter (talk) 19:55, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

First, you didn't address all my points. You addressed a very small number of my points. The main point - again - is that this is a valid, minority opinion within the scientific community and not simply the purview of "new age religious people". Second, on the 2020 experiment, "Not wanting to overstate..." is one thing, but they also unequivocally state "has clear implications for the role of consciousness" and may required "rewriting" QM. So, once again, it seems like your bias against the idea is the thing dictating the conclusion here and not the statements of the authors themselves.

On Fuchs, the point is that he doesn't exclude the possibility of consciousness causes collapse from QBism based on his formalism. He specifically says that he doesn't need to "define consciousness" to continue on with his theory - not that consciousness doesn't cause collapse. The 2015 interview I posted above is more recent than his book. He explicitly doesn't exclude this possibility, but rather just carries on with the math. Further, even on a "no collapse" view of Many Minds, minds are given the role of the only true observers of physical phenomena, but "worlds" are distinguished at the level of Minds where Minds are the "fundamental" property and not physical things. So, once again, I'm not trying to say that these are all saying the same thing but they are mainstream views within the community.

Finally, when you take the other PhD's above - making unequivocal statements about it - you can see there is support in the community for these ideas. So, on this basis, I want to change the language in the article and included quotes from both sides, without giving undue weight to the ideas nor dismissing them as fringe "new age" nonsense. Dienekles (talk) 20:38, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

You wrote, There are also several opinion pieces and excerpts from books by mainline physicists which were inclined to the consciousness causes collapse model. QBism is not "the consciousness causes collapse model". Donald's "many minds" interpretation is not "the consciousness causes collapse model". The Linde quotation is a bit of disconnected vagueness extracted from a longer passage about what he believes a future theory should eventually address — too vague to be called support of a particular "model" at all. The quotation from Dicke isn't actually a quotation from Dicke. It's a quotation from John Wheeler, misattributed by a sensationalist website, and as noted above, Wheeler himself did not demand a role for consciousness per se. There's no "mainstream view" here, just scattered examples of opinionating that physics should get around to saying something about consciousness eventually. (For example, Hans von Baeyer's 2016 book on QBism brushes past the topic of "consciousness" with a brief note to the effect that a physicist who was not among the founders of QBism speculated that a future evolution of physics might have some relevance to explaining consciousness, perhaps generations down the line.) Making these opinions sound more similar than they actually are is not encyclopedic presentation, and leaning further in to primary sources and breathless pop-science media pushed online mere days ago is not the way to give anything due weight. XOR'easter (talk) 21:26, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Oh, I see where the confusion is here. I didn't mean say that they were all "consciousness causes collapse" models. I was in a hurry to reply. The point is that these views, opinions, and models are held and articulated by mainstream physicists - both in academic journals and in scientific publications. Using such publications is not against the rules here on Wiki, as long as we cite it as the author's opinion, which is fine. The article as it stands says that these opinions, views, and models boil down to "new-age religious or philosophical views give the observer a more special role, or place constraints on who or what can be an observer. There is no credible peer-reviewed research that backs such claims." That's entirely inaccurate.

What I'm attempting to show is that there are models which do partially and fully give consciousness a special status: Wheeler's Participatory Anthropic Universe, Many Minds, and, to a degree, QBism. QBism isn't a hill I would die on. Also, there are several strains of the Copenhagen interpretation to consider. We have van Newmann to consider. The conscious observer in von Newmann certainly has a special status. The refinement of von Newmann by Dr. Menos C. Kafatos is also up there: “[Retrocausality or time-like engagement ...] implies that there is a ‘Conscious Observer’, who is able to evaluate and interpret and differentiate the structured information content from ‘random information’. And since this Conscious Observer is able to interpret in a time independent way [...] the Conscious Observer has to be outside space-time, i.e., non-local.” https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.06722

However, this doesn't all perse entail or support "consciousness causes collapse". That's entirely fair. It's also entirely beside the point. If the "We are here!" quote is Wheeler rather than Dicke, then Wheeler is clearly giving special status to conscious observations, right? Let's be fair here. Arguably, QBism is giving special status to "subjective knowledge", but if you think it's unacceptable, I'll do a further review.

Many Minds is using "minds" as the fundamental substrate of the universe rather than physical things. This is a radically "special status" for consciousness. Further, on no experimental evidence, the evidence cited above is the evidence supporting these views. That's what they claim for themselves. If critics do not agree, then cite the critics also. That's fine, but do not censor the views, opinions, and models of particular physicists because they don't agree with your personal opinion of the subject nor the academic majority.

These views, opinions, and models which give consciousness a special status do in fact exist, as a valid minority opinion, with evidentiary support. So, let's see how to language this to fairly represent, with the appropriate weight, a scholarly minority of opinions, views, and models. So, let's work together to language this into its appropriate position.Dienekles (talk) 22:59, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I have no interest in "censoring" anything. For my own part, I have sentimental attachments to all sorts of offbeat scientific ideas; I just advocate for them in places other than Wikipedia.

As best as I can tell, the citations to Kafatos are few in number, in the most marginal of venues, and mostly by Kafatos. In the absence of secondary or tertiary sources evaluating his claims, it is not Wikipedia's place to address them. (The arXiv post to which you pointed is in conference proceedings, which in physics are the lowest tier of peer review if they are reviewed at all, so it fails the WP:RS standard. And at the risk of being crass, he's literally coauthored with Deepak Chopra in NeuroQuantology, so I wouldn't hold my breath. Self-proclaimed revolutions in our understanding of quantum physics aren't even a dime a dozen, and nobody's lining up to write review articles or textbooks that cover Chopra's fellow-travelers.) The same goes for anyone who claims that an experiment whose results agree with the predictions of textbook quantum mechanics is necessarily evidence in favor of their particular take on quantum mechanics.

If the "We are here!" quote is Wheeler rather than Dicke, then Wheeler is clearly giving special status to conscious observations, right? Since the quote is about what's necessary in order to have carbon-based life, no, I wouldn't say so. XOR'easter (talk) 00:12, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

As an outsider to this debate, I have an observation that may be relevant: The topic of the article Observer (quantum physics) is, and should be, about what is meant by "an observer" in quantum physics. This is a well-used term. It is not about interpretations or the philosophies of quantum mechanics. As such, as the article (or stub) stands its reference to specifics of the debate about how this impacts interpretations are misplaced, and would belong in articles dealing with these topics. A simile: this is akin to an article Colour devoting space to the debate about whether insurance companies increase premiums for red cars: it is completely the wrong place. I have other observations about the argument here on what is appropriate in WP article space, but these seem to be irrelevant given my observation here. —Quondum 17:17, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Revision of template - please consider changing your !Vote

Hello!

you are involved in the templates for discussion deletion of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2020_September_1#Template%3AFermi_paradox

I have revised the template, please consider changing your !Vote. Thank you very much! Moscowdreams (talk) 19:01, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Proving proof that POH Brotherhood set up POP Brotherhood

I was a 20 year member of POH, NJ and a member of the Brotherhood. I have photographic evidence of our NJ leaders at POP meetings, and we did indeed set up "Brotherhood" organizations in other Covenant Community areas where their members could support them. Providing proof of what secretive groups do, isn't easy, but would that suffice ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjdon67 (talk • contribs) 01:37, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not publish Original Research. If I understand you correctly, it sounds like you should be contacting a journalist. Cheers, XOR'easter (talk) 14:42, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

RfA

I'm a bit too new at the moment to nominate you, I think, but I wanted to note that I think you'd be an excellent admin and to suggest that you consider seeking the tools at some point. Hoping there might be some talkpage stalkers who agree with me :) AleatoryPonderings (talk) 16:30, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, that's very kind of you to say! I'll give it a good thinking-over and see if anyone else chimes in. :-) XOR'easter (talk) 17:01, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi I wanted to come here to thank you, not only for your recent help with An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything, but for all the previous times you've helped out. You have been polite, hard working, knowledgeable, and very helpful. While I am not much of a stocker, I second the comments above and would be happy to nominate you, if you'd like. I am quite confident you are a perfect candidate. Footlessmouse (talk) 21:32, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Let me chime in and say that I would be happy to give you support in an RfA. Your levelheadedness and sobriety, not to mention your scientific knowledge, would be an asset to the admin corps. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:35, 31 October 2020 (UTC).

Alert to a vote on Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory

As you have edited the article, Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory, I am alerting you to a vote. You can vote Here. Elijahandskip (talk) 16:19, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Relational quantum mechanics

You removed the paragraph bringing in Mermin's "Ithaca Interpretation" (I agree that it was a good idea to remove it), but forgot to remove the corresponding references at the end of the article (in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Relational_quantum_mechanics&diff=956554421&oldid=956425428). As a reader, this was quite confusing for me, and in the end made me browse through the history of that article to clear my confusion. Can you please also remove the now unused references (to articles by Mermin, N.D.) at the end of the article, in case you agree with me that they should be removed. --Jakito (talk) 11:35, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Jakito, thank you for bringing this to my attention. I have removed the two references by N. David Mermin. In future such cases, you are welcome to make the desired changes yourself; the worst that can happen is that someone will disagree and undo your change, and then a conversation can happen on the associated Talk page to sort it out. XOR'easter (talk) 17:14, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Antifa image

The source is not a reliable source and its author can not be reliably depended upon for their identification of people. Also, the source does not say "Rose City Anifa" and its original research by whoever inserted it, much like asserting a random football player is playing for specific team without obvious proof. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Antifa_%28United_States%29&type=revision&diff=985902347&oldid=985879808 Graywalls (talk) 17:57, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Lede

Collaborative editing is a different thing to 1RR, I doubt Emir would have taken it personally if you re-factored his edit. In any case, in my opinion, if you see something changed that seems wrong my approach is to look at the broader context to try and resolve what may be causing the greatest disruption and go for a broader restructure. Koncorde (talk) 16:43, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

It's suddenly very quiet at Biden related articles. Almost like, maybe, it's not important anymore. Strange eh? Koncorde (talk) 13:28, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd noticed the page views for Hunter Biden dropping off in the final days before the election (or, given the high rate of early voting, I guess I should say "in the last days of the election"). Just think how many more laptops he might have left in random places across the country that we'll never hear about! XOR'easter (talk) 16:49, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Related, but unrelated. Greenwald just climbed a new Reichstag. The comments are fascinating. They are, often, of similar vein to those dealt with on Biden and related articles. If we do an FAQ for commonly asked questions / assertions we'll be just as well using them as a template for the crazy we are about to see. Koncorde (talk) 00:44, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm tempted to start a betting pool on how long it will take for Greenwald to go full Q like Larry Sanger. XOR'easter (talk) 03:13, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Howard B. Meek

I was going to review Howard B. Meek, but I compared it again to the tool you cited in your prior review at Talk:Howard B. Meek/GA1, and the Earwig tool confidence only went down by about 1 percentage point, when comparing to source [5] that you cited before, it still results as Violation Possible 50.0% confidence. What should be done here in this case? Right cite (talk) 01:39, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

I made some comments and filled out the 2nd review. Right cite (talk) 18:12, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Rite cite: thanks for taking the task on. I'm not sure I'll have time this week to investigate it very closely. Sometimes, the Earwig tool marks text as copied when the copying is benign, like book or article titles — one can't really paraphrase the title of a book! As I recall, some of the copying it detected in Howard B. Meek was benign, but not all, and some of the bad cut-and-paste made for downright confusing text. (I was a little puzzled that an article as short and bland as that one was nominated for GA in the first place.) XOR'easter (talk) 18:43, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

On banned IPs

Regarding this edit, the IP is a) not banned, only blocked, and b) only page blocked from the page in question. --Izno (talk) 20:42, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I realized my fingers had gone for the wrong word just after I hit Enter, but there's not a way to edit one's edit summaries! (Not the first time I've regretted that...) XOR'easter (talk) 20:43, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Parler

Thanks for catching that [6]. That was absurdly inappropriate of them, trying to push an edit that had been suggested and rejected in Talk already. IHateAccounts (talk) 03:08, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

IHateAccounts, hopefully I explained my thinking well enough over there. I am trying my best not to be confrontational, though it's never possible to predict perfectly ahead of time what someone might get upset about. XOR'easter (talk) 04:14, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

From what I am seeing, that editor (and several others, also some at Talk:Proud Boys) came in looking to provoke a confrontation, and planned to blame others if/when they got any pushback. I find it truly hard to believe that they didn't know they were attempting what Darouet had suggested; the edit summary has Shakespearean levels of "methinks they doth protest too much" in it, and there's a lot of passive-aggressiveness in their comments. IHateAccounts (talk) 04:25, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

" Hopefully this makes it flow better, but if not feel free to change obviously." - to me this, from their edit summary [7], is largely inconsistent with the way they blew up on the talk page. IHateAccounts (talk) 04:30, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:53, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Success University

I'd know exactly what to write, if only I'd attended this fine institution … AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 21:35, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

AleatoryPonderings, I'm sorely tempted to work that into the "In education" section.... XOR'easter (talk) 22:27, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Or perhaps a subsection: === In "education" === … AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 22:32, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

AleatoryPonderings, good idea! :-) I thought about adding a section "In art", so I went looking for examples of masterpieces that wouldn't be completely trite, which led me to art theft, and somehow I learned that the official toast of the Maltese Falcon Society is "Success to crime!". XOR'easter (talk) 22:49, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Paul Busch (physicist) has been accepted

Paul Busch (physicist), which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.

Congratulations, and thank you for helping expand the scope of Wikipedia! We hope you will continue making quality contributions.

The article has been assessed as Start-Class, which is recorded on its talk page. Most new articles start out as Stub-Class or Start-Class and then attain higher grades as they develop over time. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.

Since you have made at least 10 edits over more than four days, you can now create articles yourself without posting a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for creation if you prefer.

If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the help desk. Once you have made at least 10 edits and had an account for at least four days, you will have the option to create articles yourself without posting a request to Articles for creation.

If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider .

Thanks again, and happy editing!

Robert McClenon (talk) 21:59, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

"What links here" rabbit hole

Hello, again, While I have successfully edited Wikidata on Jean-Pierre Petit, I'm a bit daunted/disgusted by the 131 entries on Special:WhatLinksHere/Jean-Pierre_Petit. Plus, my university-level physics and astronomy courses from 1966 (!) are only helpful in identifying the most obvious edits needed. Would you be willing to take a look? Cheers! — Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 19:25, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Oy, that does look like a lot. I'll try to make the time to see if pages in that pile need pruning. XOR'easter (talk) 20:03, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Grand'mere Eugene, it's down to 68 items, with only 22 in article space. A significant number of the links were apparently due to his inclusion in the {{Nuclear power in France}} template. Since the article doesn't explain his relevance to that topic, I de-listed it. XOR'easter (talk) 21:16, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, that's encouraging, a good start. I'll prune some more next week before more links pop up like crabgrass. Thanks for your help! Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 22:38, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Is

Jean-Pierre Petit publications indexed by Google Scholar

the same M Petit? If so, he probably passes WP:NPROF#C1 despite the evident crankery, so we could remove {{notability}}. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 23:30, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

No, not the same guy. He's retired, working at Aix-Marseille Université. He's claimed to be a physicist, astrophysicist, astronomer, and cosmologist, but never a geologist. Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 23:53, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Quantum mechanics

Thanks a lot for taking the initiative of rewriting quantum mechanics and working hard on it. I think the article went from a complete clusterfuck to being a useful article of acceptable quality. Tercer (talk) 14:04, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

@Tercer: Having someone else to share the editing work with made the process much more fun than de-clusterfucking could have been! I shudder to think of what other junk is still out there in other articles on quantum stuff that I haven't even noticed yet. The subject seems to invite drivel sourced to press releases or worse. XOR'easter (talk) 17:58, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

@Tercer: So, what's next — Schrödinger equation, maybe? Unlike the situation with quantum mechanics, that page looks to be jam-packed with equations. But perhaps it goes too far in the direction of gathering every variant of every formula. XOR'easter (talk) 00:57, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, Schrödinger equation seems like an easier job: its problem is not too much nonsense, but rather too much of everything. It seems like every editor in Wikipedia passed by adding their favourite fact about the equation, and the result is a gigantic article that doesn't have any logical structure. Yeah, let's do it, it's mostly a matter of cutting stuff and reorganizing.

I was thinking about nominating quantum mechanics as a good article. Both because I think it's now good enough, and also to provide a fixed point of reference to help prevent the usual decay.

Something I really want to do at some vague point in the future is fix Bell's theorem. The article suffers not only from being a crank magnet, but also from having well-intentioned lay people adding misunderstood statements from press releases, and, more problematically, honest disagreement between knowledgeable people (e.g. the epic fight being Maudlin and Werner). This makes editing it like playing football with a wasp's nest. Tercer (talk) 21:55, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

@Tercer: Fixing up the Bell's theorem page will no doubt be an adventure. Regarding Schrödinger equation, I made a sandbox page where I built a skeleton of what I think I might be a good section order, and I pasted in some blocks of the existing text that didn't look too bad. XOR'easter (talk) 02:54, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@Tercer: OK, I've wrangled this draft into something I'm more or less happy with. (There are a couple places, like the "Changes of basis" subsection, where I'm conflicted on how much to say.) I think it hits the essential points without meandering, at least. XOR'easter (talk) 17:34, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

@Tercer: I've brought my sandbox draft over to Schrödinger equation now. XOR'easter (talk) 18:47, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

That's a pretty drastic change, it makes it hard to review what the difference is. In any case, I skimmed through the new version, and it's remarkably nonsense-free. It does jump back and forth between Dirac and non-Dirac notation, which is a bit jarring. Tercer (talk) 16:03, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

@Tercer: Yeah, it ended up being a pretty drastic chop-job, which makes a side-by-side comparison difficult. From this version, I cut most of "The wave equation for particles", which was a disorganized mess of a section. I also cut "First order form" and squeezed down the examples section. I wouldn't mind judiciously adding things to the shorter version (maybe not the same things that were cut), but my guess is that it would be best to polish the shorter version until it reaches adequacy. I tried to smooth out the notations in different parts, but no doubt I missed some troubles. As always, I really appreciate your contributions! These are important articles that have gone under-scrutinized for too long. XOR'easter (talk) 02:48, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I think it's a perennial problem with Wikipedia: editors write about whatever they find interesting, which often does not align with what the readers find interesting, so we have important articles such as Schrödinger equation and quantum mechanics in a bad state. And they are important, Schrödinger equation has circa 70,000 monthly page views and quantum mechanics has 120,000! Perhaps it would be useful to post a list of the top 10 articles that have a huge amount of views and are in a terrible state in WikiProject Physics? You're good at gently prodding people into getting things done. Tercer (talk) 14:34, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

@Tercer: As a prelude to that, I took the physics articles that were listed as "vital" and ranked them by 30-day page views. Top of the list is Newton's laws of motion with 160k, followed by quantum mechanics with 120k. Bell's theorem isn't on the "vital" list, but at 19.9k it would clock in between Motion and Weak interaction. I have no real idea how to make a decent article on Bell's theorem, but I did create a bucket into which I am pouring words about it. When the bucket gets too heavy to lift, I'll call it "full" and see if it contains a reasonable draft of something. XOR'easter (talk) 17:05, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Nice work! That's a good way to compile such a list. The top one, Newton's laws of motion, rather surprised me, Newton's laws are soo out of fashion. It's a really good target for improvement: the subject is easy, well-known, and uncontroversial. Also, I don't have the slightest interest in working on it, which might explain why it's half-assed, if everybody feels the same way.

It provides empirical evidence for the misalignment between readers' and editors' interest: of these 40 articles, only 4 have GOOD/FEATURED status: Speed of light (3), Electron (13), Force (18), and Weak interaction (36). There are several who can't really be helped: Time is as important a concept as it gets, but it's so broad that I don't see how a satisfactory article could be written about it. Theory of relativity is just a bad idea, you can't talk intelligibly about both the special and general theories of relativity. Electromagnetism seems simply a mistake, it covers essentially the same thing as Classical electromagnetism but does a worse job. And has an order magnitude more views because of the simpler name.

I have then removed from your list the articles I think are hopeless for the above reasons. The remaining are:

1. Newton's laws of motion - 160,228
2. Quantum mechanics - 124,694
3. Temperature - 72,412
4. Electromagnetic radiation - 67,365
5. Light - 63,584
6. Proton - 46,971
7. State of matter - 45,106
8. Momentum - 44,899
9. Photon - 43,177
10. Radioactive decay - 40,501
11. Mass - 39,237
12. Thermodynamics - 37,156
13. Neutron - 28,412
14. Standard Model - 25,686
15. Magnetism - 23,939
16. Classical mechanics - 21,027
17. Optics - 18,599
18. Particle physics - 17,366
19. Strong interaction - 17,313

To get to a top 10 I think it should be cut down further by focussing on those which editors might find fun to work on. That's terribly difficult to predict, though. Personally I would favour the "simple" particles: proton, neutron, and photon. Tercer (talk) 22:48, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

As for Bell's theorem, I do have several ideas about to do it right. The main thing is to use the nonlocal game formulation. I always do it with my students, and it works, they get it. All this talk about singlet correlations and angle between detectors only confuses them, and it's completely besides the point. Another thing is to cleanly separate the informal argument done in Bell 1964 from the theorem proven in CHSH 1969. The former belongs to the History section, the latter is what is known as Bell's theorem, confusingly enough. Another thing is that it is necessary to mention the theorem proven in Bell 1975. Which is a different theorem, unfortunately also known as "Bell's theorem", and a very important one. Clearing this up would allow people to focus on the actual philosophical discussions. I have witnessed frustratingly often pointless arguments that boiled down to people getting these three arguments mixed up. Tercer (talk) 23:03, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

My guess with Newton's laws of motion is that students from middle school on up have to learn about them, at least superficially, so they get Googled a lot. I'd like to take a shot at improving it, but I'd have to think hard about how. And it's not a very, well, glamorous topic, so it might be hard to engage editor interest. Your suggestions of proton, neutron, and photon sound like easier "sells" in that regard. Photon was a Featured Article until it was reviewed and demoted last summer. XOR'easter (talk) 23:06, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps we could organize a contest? I've seen other WikiProjects doing that, and surprisingly enough, it seems to work, even though the prizes are just peer-recognition. I would be willing to put some money of my own into offering monetary prizes, if that is at all allowed by Wikipedia rules (I've recently made some money from gambling, and I think it's crucial to not use it myself to prevent addiction). Tercer (talk) 14:12, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

I've never organized a contest here before, but it does seem like it could work. I don't know if monetary prizes would run afoul of the paid editing rules; in all the "article improvement drives" and such that I've seen, the prize was recognition. Divvying up a prize among multiple contributors might get tricky, too. XOR'easter (talk) 16:52, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

I've searched a bit, and there is precedent, Wikipedia:The Core Contest and Wikipedia:Reward board both give monetary awards (the latter sporadically so). If you look at the earliest talk pages of the Core Contest, you'll see there was some outrage at the idea of offering money, but the contest went on regardless. I don't think sharing a prize among multiple contributors is really a problem; editors often work alone anyway, and we can see how they did it at the Core Contest, the editor just submitted a diff of their work, which was then judged by a couple of rando's. Tercer (talk) 17:52, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps Wikipedia:The Core Contest is the example to follow. We could suggest 3–5 articles to choose from, recruit a couple willing judges, and say that the prizes will be awarded for the best improvement after six weeks. If it's your money that will provide the prize (as gift certificates or whatever), I suppose you'd judge rather than edit? We can suggest articles that neither of us have too much interest in improving personally (after all, there's no shortage of troubles to fix...). XOR'easter (talk) 19:21, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Hum yeah, I'm not awarding my money to myself. It's not a real limitation, if I really want to edit some article I can just wait until the contest is over before doing it. I'd rather award prizes to editors who manage to get GA/FA status, it makes judging much easier and the results more visible. Since it can take ages for the review to conclude perhaps we only demand that the articles are nominated after 6 weeks. Why limit to 3-5 articles? The more the merrier no? Increases the chance of somebody finding a topic they are interested in. We can give a starting list with a few articles that obviously fulfil the criteria, and allow people to add articles to the list if the judges agree. I've posted the contest idea in WikiProject Physics. Tercer (talk) 12:47, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

The "3–5" bit was just me thinking that presenting too many options might create an intimidating feeling about the size of the problem to be tackled; "choice paralysis", I think some call it. But that's not a major concern, just one of those worries that bite at me and that I probably over-analyze. Your proposal over at WT:PHYS looks good. XOR'easter (talk) 16:15, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Yo Ho Ho

JBL (talk) is wishing a foaming mug of Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Christmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Dec20}} to your friends' talk pages.

+1. Season's greetings! All the best wishes for 2021. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 23:45, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

JBL, AleatoryPonderings — To you both as well! XOR'easter (talk) 00:04, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Twitter article removal of bias indication

Wikipedia articles must be fair in terms of laying out the facts across all articles of similar nature, especially when a private company is involved; see the articles of other microblogging sites. You are welcome to edit all of those if you suspect them to not be neutral enough. The information added has 3 independent citations. Meisterlone (talk) 09:55, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

None of them supported the claim that Twitter is "known for" a left-leaning user base. Nor did they establish that the (slight) political lean found in one Pew survey is the most important thing about the company and thus warrants inclusion in the first sentence. One of the sources was to Russian propaganda. Two editors besides myself (Noq and Possibly) disagree with your edit. Please refrain from edit-warring to include it. XOR'easter (talk) 15:13, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Removal of Neutrality tag

Hi XOR'easter, may I ask why you removed the Neutrality tag that I added to the"Chinese laboratory origin" of the Misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic? As you are aware, there is an ongoing discussion on the talk page, as well as on the talk page of Wuhan Institute of Virology as to whether certain lab origin scenarios are indeed plausible. The US Department of State just released a statement on the matter, and I think it's necessary for our discussion reach a consensus before removing the tag. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 02:07, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

There is no reason to believe that the US State Department is a reliable source on medical or scientific matters. XOR'easter (talk) 02:18, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Even so, isn't there a Wikipedia policy requiring us to discuss matters and reach a consensus? The USDOS is significant, and worded in such a way not to discount alternative origin scenarios, and is by no means the only item that is being discussed. There are no MEDRS sources clearly indicating that the possibility of all lab leak scenarios (of which there are several) can be classed as misinformation, and so the discussion of NPOV will continue and I would appreciate if you can revert your change. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 02:35, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I respectfully decline to do so. Marking the section as disputed creates an unwarranted air of untrustworthiness; it should be marked if and only if a consensus forms that it is, in fact, in need of change. XOR'easter (talk) 02:37, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but according to Wikipedia policy, that's not how this works. I and a number of other editors have raised concerns that this section does not present all lab origin scenarios, and fails to meet WP:NPOV, which is something we're currently discussing across two talk pages. Only once a consensus has been reached on whether the section meets WP:NPOV should the tag be removed. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 02:42, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

A satisfactory description of the neutrality issue has not been provided — meta-arguments about when WP:MEDRS is necessary are not a clear debate — and so the tag is not warranted. Not every dispute on a Talk page has to be flagged on the associated article itself. XOR'easter (talk) 02:47, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

If that is the case, I will write a description of the neutrality issue on the Talk page, and affix the Neutrality tag once more to the section. The section currently references a number of dates sources and conflates different lab origin theories with each other (see Forich's very helpful notes here which should clear things up). I do understand why you are sceptical, and I was just reading a Twitter thread from another sceptic on the topic who says how most proponents of the theory have nefarious intent (which I don't entirely disagree with), but I am holding these discussions in good faith, and I would ask you to do the same. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 02:58, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I read that section and did not find matters cleared up very much. Indeed, it seemed rather emblematic of the whole dispute/meta-dispute/meta-meta-dispute. Adding yet another section to that poor Talk page will only fracture the conversation further, IMO. XOR'easter (talk) 03:01, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I understand your point about meta-arguments on WP:MEDRS, but this is a very unique situation. It's not every day you get a global pandemic originating in a country that is being anything but cooperative with the international community, and without an open investigation or forensic evidence, scientists will never be able to prove one origin scenario over another. One of the WHO's investigations team members has said he would keep an "open mind" to it, so why don't you? The changes I want to make to the Misinformation and Wuhan article are not to reflect a POV that a lab leak definitely happened, but only to differentiate between different lab leak scenario, because there are several, and they should not be conflated. If you didn't find Forich's comments helpful, then you may find this letter from David Relman to present the origin scenarios in clear terms. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 03:13, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

As long as we're sharing opinion columns that don't meet the strict standards of WP:SECONDARY/WP:MEDRS, why not this? But since this conversation is both going nowhere and occurring in too many pages at once, I'd like to close this thread now. XOR'easter (talk) 03:22, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I read Angela's post. Please you also read David's post. Also, please don't conflate legitimate lab leak origin scenarios with conspiracy theories from the likes of Yan Li-Meng. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 03:59, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I've read everything you've linked here. As I said in my previous comment, this conversation is both going nowhere and occurring in too many pages at once, so I am calling an end to it. Please do not comment in this section further. XOR'easter (talk) 04:02, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Discussion on MEDRS/RS debate regarding fringe lab leak theory

Your comment on whether MEDRS are mandatory before editing a claim implying the lab leak theory is not a conspiracy/fringe idea is requested by this Diff in this page, please take a look. Forich (talk) 03:00, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for January 31

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Quantum Bayesianism, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Phenomenology.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:12, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Wow

I had just finished marveling at that NYT byline after adding some authorlinks to it on a different page, and then saw your edit summary. I don't think I've seen anything like it either! Definitely going on the to-read list for when I get some time later today. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:28, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

SPA template

Over at Talk:Parler you've tagged two accounts with {{spa}} after they've made a comment [8] [9]. I find this problematic for several reasons. Firstly, the template is intended for use at AFD, not on article talk pages and I have never seen it used on talk pages before. Further, as the documentation says "Unless there are multiple new accounts or IPs voicing the same opinion (a typical sign of sockpuppetry), there is probably no need to use this template". Finally, those posts were the editors very first edits. It's rather difficult not to be an SPA when you've only made one edit! It comes across as incredibly bitey and unwelcoming. Now I know the chances of them contributing positively are close to zero, but that's no reason not to respond in a friendly manner to them. Please reconsider your use of it. SmartSE (talk) 20:00, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

OK, I'll be more careful about that, though I've definitely seen {{spa}} used outside of AFD's (for example, by people other than me at Talk:Parler [10]). It seems a rather neutral message to me; "this user has made few or no other edits" can equally well signal to more established editors, "hey, don't presume an in-depth knowledge of Wikipedia jargon in this conversation". But if it rubs the wrong way, I'll avoid it. XOR'easter (talk) 20:31, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I guess I see it more as "this person's opinions don't matter". The lack of knowledge is self-evident! Note that I posted at Template_talk:Single-purpose_account#Use_outside_of_AFD about this too. SmartSE (talk) 20:57, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

"Critical social justice"w

Reading this essay by Lindsay makes it clear that "critical social justice" is his invented/stolen phrase to (he thinks) negatively identify the social justice movement. Still, it’s nearly always best to name your enemy something that they would or do call themselves. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 01:36, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Concern regarding Draft:Edith C. Halbert

Hello, XOR'easter. I just wanted to let you know that Draft:Edith C. Halbert, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Draft space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for article space.

If your submission is not edited soon, it could be nominated for deletion under CSD G13. If you would like to attempt to save it, you will need to improve it. You may request userfication of the content if it meets requirements.

If the deletion has already occured, instructions on how you may be able to retrieve it are available here.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. Bot0612 (talk) 02:23, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Note to my future self: this draft was edited by a couple other users and myself after this notice, but not yet promoted to mainspace. XOR'easter (talk) 22:12, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Concern regarding Draft:Gilda H. Loew

Hello, XOR'easter. I just wanted to let you know that Draft:Gilda H. Loew, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Draft space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for article space.

If your submission is not edited soon, it could be nominated for deletion under CSD G13. If you would like to attempt to save it, you will need to improve it. You may request userfication of the content if it meets requirements.

If the deletion has already occured, instructions on how you may be able to retrieve it are available here.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. Bot0612 (talk) 02:26, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Note to my future self: this draft was promoted to mainspace. XOR'easter (talk) 22:11, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Notice of Dispute resolution noticeboard discussion

This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the Dispute_resolution_noticeboard regarding constant reverts and threats of blocking by gatekeepers. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help this dispute come to a resolution. The thread is "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#COVID-19_misinformation#Wuhan_lab_leak_story".The discussion is about the topic COVID-19 misinformation.

Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you!

Billybostickson (talk) 17:46, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Note to my future self: the above user was apparently blocked for personal attacks, making the DRN superfluous. XOR'easter (talk) 18:38, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Question on Gilda

I just added this source that is a short obituary on Gilda. I noticed that they list her as "Gilda B. Loew" on there. Is that just a typo on their part? Silverseren^C 20:57, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I'd guess so; it seems like an easy typo to make (particularly if the text passed through handwriting at some point). XOR'easter (talk) 21:32, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I think i've done everything I can for the article. What do you think? Ready for mainspace? Silverseren^C 21:37, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Elitzur-Vaidman bomb tester

Hi XOR'easter, I'd like to get your thoughts on Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester#Interpretation. It contains only the view of Elitzur and Vaidman themselves that the experiment supports the many worlds interpretation, strongly implying that it is evidence in its favor. As I understand it, however, no experiment yet devised can discriminate between interpretations, and that no single interpretation is currently favored by the scientific community as a whole. Do you have any ideas for how to balance this section out? Crossroads ^-talk- 22:25, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't have references immediately at hand about different interpretations of the Elitzur–Vaidman bomb test, though I do recall Rob Spekkens saying somewhere that it could actually be implemented in his toy model with local hidden variables, so it's not so dramatic after all. And somebody (maybe Jean Bricmont?) offered an explanation in terms of Bohmian mechanics. I'll poke around a bit. XOR'easter (talk) 22:40, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

OK, I've added a little. My (very informal) impression is that the bomb tester doesn't come up in actual quantum-foundations arguments as much as it does in pop science; using it to argue in favor of an interpretation feels somewhat passé. XOR'easter (talk) 23:09, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:33, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Okay, while I'm here, I just saw this be added to a sidebar: Cosmological interpretation of quantum mechanics. The article's been around for years, but is this topic pro-fringe or even notable? I did hear about this idea before in a pop-science context, but I know that pop-science overly hypes up anything multiverse related. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:50, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm doubtful that it's notable. Plenty of quantum interpretations have been thought up, mentioned in passing ("Unlike the cosmological interpretation of Aguirre and Tegmark [25], ours..."), and then been forgotten by everyone but their inventors. Perhaps this page ought to be selectively merged somewhere. XOR'easter (talk) 15:45, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I tagged the article. According to Google Scholar and its generous citation counting, the original Aguirre & Tegmark 2011 paper has 61 citations - but as you noted, hard to tell offhand if that translates into a GNG pass. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:05, 25 February 2021 (UTC)