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Notice to IP and newly-registered editors

IP and newly registered editors: due to vandalism, it has become necessary that this page be semiprotected, which may prevent you from leaving a message here. If you cannot edit this page, please leave me messages at User talk:Abd/IP.

RfC on my conduct relevant to my block on August 11

A user-space RfC on my conduct as relating to my block on August 11, 2008, has been proceeding at a glacial pace, and appears ready to determine a conclusion on the first issue, whether or not I had behaved as charged in the initial warning. Comment from all users is welcome. The RfC summary page is at User:Abd/RfC/8.11.08 block, but discussion and comment is at User talk:Abd/RfC/8.11.08 block.

WELCOME TO Abd TALK

WARNING: Reading the screeds, tomes, or rants of Abd has been known to cause serious damage to mental health. One editor, a long-time Wikipedian, in spite of warnings from a real-life organization dedicated to protecting the planet from the likes of Abd, actually read Abd's comments and thought he understood them.

After reading, his behavior became erratic. He proposed WP:PRX and insisted on promoting it. Continuing after he was unblocked, and in spite of his extensive experience, with many thousands of edits,he created a hoax article and actually made a joke in mainspace. When he was unblocked from that, he created a non-notable article on Easter Bunny Hotline, and was finally considered banned. What had really happened? His brain had turned to Slime mold (see illustration).

Caution is advised.

Merry Christmas

A Nobody is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Don't eat yellow snow!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:Flaming/MC2008}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

--A Nobody 03:15, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Merry Christmas. I hope things have been going well for you, and that you have a good holiday. Take care of yourself. Thank you for everything. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:59, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

PHG ArbCom request

I've posted a request for possible additional evidence at Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration/PHG/Evidence. Cool Hand Luke 18:54, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

lenr-canr.org

Thank you for your interest in the lenr-canr.org case. I agree with you, that it is a huge can of worms. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 20:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

So learn How to Eat Fried Worms, so you can have a Diet of Worms! :-) *Dan T.* (talk) 01:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

All in pursuance of the Edict of Worms.

I must say, I started reading up on the field of LENR, which I'd mostly ignored since 1990 or so. Wow! The big obstacle then was that proof of nuclear reactions was thin, easily subject either to experimental error or to accusations of same, etc. Excess heat was difficult to confirm, allegedly involved mysterious experimental variables; however, the SPAWAR work has apparently come up with reproducible results; not only excess heat but such strong and clear evidence of nuclear reactions (beta radiation detected with CR-39) that the shoe has moved to the other foot. It's the smoking gun. The 2004 DOE report, flying in the face of claims that this is "fringe science," recommended further research. My guess is that another, similar review, today, would be more positive. But once a field has been tagged as "fringe," there are some editors who become like bulldogs, defenders of the wiki, saving the world from POV pushers, fringe fanatics, and the rest.

In any case, lenr-canr.org has been an invaluable resource, personally. It seems fairly objective, given the topic. My guess is that there is a bias in selection of papers, but not necessarily one which the site is responsible for: it may be more difficult for them to get permission to put up copies of skeptical papers! --Abd (talk) 00:46, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

The plot has thickened. I'm known for wordiness. However, in response to a query on the meta blacklist Talk page, I was pretty succinct. JzG seems to have come unglued, with reams of irrelevant argument. The spam blacklist isn't a content control device, used to prevent editors from inappropriate sourcing, unless there has been such a level of linkspamming that it can't be controlled in any other way. There wasn't, as far as I've found, any linkspamming. The original edit that got me involved here, in Martin Fleischmann, wasn't added by Pcarbonn or Rothwell, it was added by you, Petri Krohn, and you took it from Cold fusion, where the link had been added by User:LeadSongDog, a critic of Rothwell as far as I've noticed. The original source, the paper by Fleischmann, was indeed first referenced by Pcarbonn, but quite legitimately, and it wasn't controversial, and JzG didn't remove the reference to the paper, only to the copy found on lenr-canr.org. It's all so obvious to me that I really wonder why JzG doesn't just give up. There wasn't any avalanche of linkspamming. The links were there for a long time before he removed them. I'm trying to find if there is anyone whom JzG trusts who might mediate. I've got at least one idea. --Abd (talk) 04:13, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Account Creation Tool Confirmation

Hi Abd, someone, probably you, requested access to the account creation tool. For security purposes could you please confirm that it was you who made the request so we can approve you, thanks. If you use IRC, please join us on the Freenode Network, #wikipedia-en-accounts. Hope to hear from you soon! The Helpful One 12:00, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I did not make this request, to my recollection. How was the request made? --Abd (talk) 17:32, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

It was made through the ACC tool, at http://stable.toolserver.org/acc/acc.php. The account request has been declined. Thanks! :) The Helpful One 21:15, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Is there a record of the IP from which it was made? Impersonation is a serious matter. --Abd (talk) 21:59, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Abd!

I'm sorry I wasn't able to participate in this. After my sanction I wanted to take a break to let the dust settle, but five months later this place hasn't changed one bit and the harrassment continues unabated from the usual sources. I dropped out around the time you had asked for my participation. Is there anything I can still do to help or has that run its course?

Anything new and interesting you are involved with around here or is it just the same old thing?

--GoRight (talk) 18:59, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, Jehochman ended up acknowledging that his warning wasn't justified (in retrospect). That warning was the basis for the block, so the next step would be for me to negotiate something with User:Iridescent. I have other fish to fry, and I assume she does too.... At some point I might ask for a review, and continue examination in my own RfC. You did some good work with relation to the user who had been topic banned, while I was blocked, that I appreciated. Right now, I came across, a few days ago, what appears to be an abuse of admin tools to add a library of documents on cold fusion, lenr-canr.org, to the spam blacklist, based on the admin's POV and personal judgments, without discussion. I'm simply pursuing that one step at a time. The admin is intransigent; he was asked to remove the blacklisting, which he eventually did, but only after going to meta and getting it blacklisted there, again without discussion from anyone knowledgeable; he simply tosses a series of charges -- without evidence, as to the central ones -- and, given that he's a "respected administrator," he is simply believed without investigation. I asked admin DGG to investigate and comment, and he did, with a contrary conclusion: the site should not be blacklisted. There are a number of admins who seem to think they own this place, and, to some extent, they do. But not legitimately, it's simply institutional inertia and the problems of mass process without coherent deliberative structure. There are some good signs, there have been some excellent additions to ArbComm, but ... it's tedious.

My own activity has declined greatly due to the press of other responsibilities. I was doing a lot of vandalism patrol, which I find fascinating and rewarding. Better than video games.... Misplaced Pages is designed to make maintaining the project highly inefficient, and there are proposals that would make it much, much simpler, without sacrificing the core wiki traditions; but the defacto oligarchy has become highly conservative, resisting change simply on that basis: it's change. Users who arrive with a glimpse of the wiki vision, what might be called a common-law understanding of it, are often blocked quite quickly, under all-too-common conditions. --Abd (talk) 20:44, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Yea, I noticed the elections to the Arbcom too. There were a couple people there that I think will be good additions. I'm glad to hear that some level of resolution on the block discussion came to fruition and it sounds like everyone is moving on. That's good. If only I could get others to do so as well, eh? --GoRight (talk) 00:22, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I haven't been watching the admin noticeboards, but, looking for a report on the webmaster of lenr-canr.org, Jed Rothwell, I did notice the activity there about you. I commented. Damn crystal ball, ugly images in it! What a waste. --Abd (talk) 23:48, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Well there is no controlling these things, but I trust that the neutral parties there will see this for what it is and come to the right decision. I plan to stay out of the discussion other than my one statement, unless something significant develops that requires a further response. Thanks for your support, though. --GoRight (talk) 00:22, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, good to stay out of it. Let others defend you. And if they don't ... shame on them! What's sad to see in so many AN and AN/I discussions is how someone makes a charge against somebody and the crowd starts to shout "Off with his head!" It's a strange perversion of WP:AGF. When one editor is accusing another, AGF is fine, but it should not go to the extent of assuming that the charges are accurate. Far too many editors will comment without any investigation, or will investigate very shallowly, jumping to conclusions. I can understand it -- it takes a lot of time to do better -- but it's frustrating to read. I can see why some editors lose it and start raving. --Abd (talk) 00:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is exactly what happened to Wilhelmina! --GoRight (talk) 00:45, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

cold fusion report recommendation

as my edit says, it's a cookie-cutter standard recommendation, it was used to POV push that the controversy was still open, so I'd rather keep it out of the page for now unless a proper explanation can be done for it. --Enric Naval (talk) 04:43, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll take a look, Enric. I haven't followed the history, and, to me, it's irrelevant that someone used a reliable source to POV push. It's a reliable source or it isn't, and the text is supported by the source or it isn't. If imbalance is introduced, the standard response is to balance it, not remove it. So ... if you can support the claim that this was a "cookie cutter standard recommendation," by all means, put it in with source. Otherwise it looks to me like what is being pushed is a POV that the controversy is not open. It's obvious that it is, reviewing recent reliable sources. Enric, I was familiar with the topic back in 1990. I had concluded from all the mess back then that the probability was low that fusion had taken place, there were too many mysteries, too many opportunities for experimental error; as you know, cold fusion has been used for years as a paradigmatic example of junk science. The mechanism is obvious: some finding would be very attractive, so lots of researchers try to confirm it. If they fail, they are angry that their time was wasted. Some will "succeed," i.e., perhaps, make the same experimental errors, etc.

However, there is an alternate hypothesis: the conditions under which fusion occurs are very sensitive to poorly understood variables. It seems there is a consensus now among those in the field that deuterium loading must exceed 90%, or excess heating doesn't happen. Most of the early attempts to quickly verify the effect didn't wait for that. There is now a new technique that effectively loads to a high level, approaching 100%, and that, it is claimed, immediately produces excess heat; but even more to the point, it shows immediate alpha particle radiation, as shown by CR-39 detectors, sourced in the active electrode. No cogent alternate explanation for the apparent radiation has been advanced. Alpha radiation is a clear signature of nuclear reactions, and it is essentially helium nuclei, so it simultaneously shows helium production, the ash of a fusion reaction. The best I've seen is the possibility of arcing that somehow burns the plastic detector; however, the phenomenon doesn't only happen under high voltage excitation, it happens a very low voltage; and arcing in aqueous solution? (This is from the SPAWAR experiments, i.e., the U.S. Navy laboratory, and it's been peer-review published, apparently.)

I appreciate your note, thanks. Let's see what we can do with this. This affair may be one of a few examples I know of where what was thought to be junk science turns out, in the end, to be valid, if poorly understood. Pons and Fleischmann made political errors, prematurely announcing their discovery, which they had been working on for many years, before peer review. They were essentially forced to do this by university management, it's claimed. Regardless, whatever errors P and F made is irrelevant to the actual science; their biggest error was in claiming fusion, they didn't have sufficient evidence for that. They'd have been more successful, in hindsight, simply publishing the reports of excess heat and other experimental data, without even speculating on the source of it. Even though it was pretty obvious -- if they hadn't made errors in their calorimetry and if there wasn't some other explanation that they simply couldn't imagine. But the CR-39 results are stunning. The shoe is now, from my point of view, on the other foot, there is the smoking gun or something that looks so much like it that it's time to tackle the one with the gun. Probable cause! Proof if confirmed, and there has been confirmation. The field includes researchers who are now being far more careful, far less simply enthusiastic, actively looking for loopholes and flaws.

As to the "cookie cutter" idea, that's suspicious to me in this case: the recommendation wasn't unanimous, it was "almost" unanimous. If it was cookie cutter, there wouldn't have been opposition, I'd have expected. As to the other findings, there was no unanimity on the review panel, there clearly are independent experts who think that this field isn't closed.

And the 2004 DOE report was before the CR-39 results were available, I think. CR-39 had been tried before, but in order not to interfere with deuterium loading, the detector was placed at a distance from the electrode; apparently the radiation is at relatively low energy, on the order of 1 Mev, which doesn't travel a sufficient distance in water to show results above background at the distance involved. With the new loading technique (the palladium is electroplated on the electrode instead of the electrode itself being palladium, and so it's 100% loaded with deuterium at the same time as the palladium structure is built up, atom by atom, and so the effects, including excess heat, are seen very quickly), the CR-39 could be placed much closer to the electrode.

There are many other findings in the literature of radiation and other signs of nuclear reactions, but this one is so simple and so direct that it's overwhelming. --Abd (talk) 14:49, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Errrr, I think that I'd rather quote good experts on their interpretations of the CR-39 results, instead of citing directly the results as if they were proof of anything.

You see, in science there are these little issues like reproducibility where you need other people to reproduce your results in a somewhat predictible way, or like measurement problems and other stuff that is not noticed by non-experts like us and that gets noticed only when other scientists look at the results in depth. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:46, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, of course! Enric, this discussion here is Talk, for background. I haven't seen a secondary source comment on the results yet. Anyone who has, please, let us know! Now, there is a question of "expert." Who is an expert on this field? The specific field of expertise would be important. An expert on hot fusion isn't an expert on cold fusion, or on the techniques that are used to allegedly demonstrate it, necessarily. I'm still looking around, becoming familiar, a little, with the recent work. Slowly. --Abd (talk) 17:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, you are right, I haven't seen either any secondary comment presented on the talk page. About experts, I suppose that we would want expert physicists for some of the energy stuff, people like User:Kirk shanahan for calibration stuff, maybe metallurgics or chemists for what molecules are getting formed, etc. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:16, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I just noticed that JzG AfD'd Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments, the AfD is at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments/ Contrary to what one would assume from JzG's assertions in the AfD, the principal editor -- or a least one of them -- was Shanahan, a critic, not Pcarbonn, though Pcarbonn did create the page.

The nomination text:

Yet another POV fork from Pcarbonn's attempts to boost cold fusion. Most of the rest were cleaned up some time ago, obviously this one got missed. See Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion for the gory details. This gives undue weight to one aspect of a subject that is covered more neutrally by the day at cold fusion. Guy (Help!) 21:19, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The page was an attempt to resolve disputes over detail on Cold fusion, it's mentioned in Talk for Cold fusion. You can see it at User:Abd/Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments. This page should then have been taken back into Cold fusion using summary style. Enric, if you aren't already familiar with that page, would you look at it? It seems a good page for detail on calorimetry issues, well-sourced, and, on the face, neutral. I'm considering moving to get it undeleted, would you support that? --Abd (talk) 14:55, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

If I read the timestamps right, that AfD was closed 3 hours and 13 minutes after it started... so it looks like a tight clique using the AfD process to rubberstamp their actions, rather than a true attempt to get community discussion and consensus. *Dan T.* (talk) 16:11, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you are right, thanks for pointing that out. I've requested reversal from the admin who closed and deleted so quickly. If he does, the AfD may be reopened for comment, and we can solicit comment neutrally, on wikiprojects or on Cold fusion. If not, then we go to WP:DRV. Please remember to assume good faith. --Abd (talk) 17:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Aether22 block

Hello Abd, I have something I want to tell you, following your message at Talk:Urination about blocking Aether22. I came to that page in response to the RfC, and happened to come down on the side of retaining Aether22's image, but I've been trying to be even-handed in the dispute. I noticed at Aether22's talk page that the block was initiated by Nandesuka and then reviewed by you. I agree with your decision, based on 3RR and incivility, and note your concerns about some of the details of Nandesuka's initial action, but there is something more that I'd like to make you aware of. Nandesuka has also been repeatedly deleting the image, based on copyright violations, and that seems to have been the original reason for the block. However, after the first deletion by Nandesuka, I looked at the image's main page, and could see nothing wrong with the GFDL (unless of course I'm missing something). I repeatedly asked at the talk page for Nandesuka to explain the claim about copyright, but never got an explanation. Bottom line: although I agree with your final disposition of the block, I'm worried that the original block was placed for invalid reasons, perhaps with an agenda of suppressing the image. I hope I'm not out of line in telling you this, but it makes me feel uncomfortable. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

The bottom line is that Aether22 was legitimately blocked the first time for 3RR violation. It's a bright line, he could be doing everything right in terms of policy, except that if he edit wars to that extent, he *will* be blocked assuming that it comes to an administrator's attention, and an editor warned him, and he didn't stop, he barged ahead. There may be extenuating circumstances, but it was only a 24 hour block, not a big deal in itself. Now, if Nandesuka was involved in a content dispute with Aether22, that's a problem in itself. It's a huge can of worms, though, and unless some serious ongoing damage is done, I'm not inclined to waste a lot of time on it.

I've requested that an admin look at it, though I'm not holding my breath. I advise against asserting an "agenda" unless there is proof, it poisons the atmosphere. My suggestion is to seriously defend the image and ignore, unless it becomes *necessary*, the behavioral issues. It looks like the existence of the image in the article has settled, and so Aether22's position was basically vindicated, but not his edit warring. If he'd only been more patient, he probably wouldn't have been blocked.

I'm quite certain that if I were to hit an arguable 4RR, I'd be blocked in a flash. I'm watched closely, possibly by some admins, or by blocked users or others who would drop a hint. I might be blocked below that, I'm an experienced editor and am expected to refrain from edit warring, which, I agree, usually is taking place below the 3RR level. Aether22 hit 4RR or more. The sock puppetry thing was a big red herring; I have an issue with editors who file sock puppet reports for an acknowledged IP edit. That's not sock puppetry at all unless it's deliberately done to conceal the editor's identity, and it probably wasn't.

The second block, though, is shakier. I think a week was extreme, under the circumstances (the relative mildness of any "edit warring," if there was any at all). I'd cut Aether22 some slack on the incivility; he should have been warned, not blocked. Essentially, a block there, without further warning, seems punitive. My sense is that Aether22 would respond to supportive assistance as to how to comply with policy, there is far too much blocking; it's a bit weird. You can come in as an IP editor and vandalized, vandalize, vandalize, and you will usually get three warnings before being blocked.... I have a sense that Aether22 is a bit bewildered by it all.

By the way, to make it clear, I'm not an administrator, so I have no authority to accept or reject an unblock request by Aether22. I simply made some comments. --Abd (talk) 00:52, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks so much. That all makes very good sense to me and is very helpful. (My apologies for assuming that you were an admin.) --Tryptofish (talk) 01:14, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Abd. I just wanted to chip in my thoughts. While I'm personally not in favor of the image, I did think the week long block of Aether22 was excessive as well. Seems like good folk. I was really impressed with the efforts you went to in order to coach him and all. Shows what a good person your are. guess that's all I really wanted to say. Ched (talk) 15:50, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Confused

I am confused here. The thread about me at WP:AN is gone, but I don't seem to find it in the archives either. Is it simply gone (other than in the history, of course) or is it archived someplace special or what? What was the final resolution? --GoRight (talk) 23:39, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, I found it in archive 181. --GoRight (talk) 23:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

The final resolution was that the attempt to get you banned fell flat on its face. Be careful. As you were well advised, you may need to keep your behavior spotless. This is still not a safe place, where someone like you could make mistakes and be able to easily recover. Someone like some of those you've been in conflict with can make lots of mistakes, never apologize, never acknowledge them, and nothing happens. There is no policy that Misplaced Pages must be fair. If it were "selling" something, it would fail consumer fraud laws. That is certainly not deliberate, but it's the effect.

Now that you now this, now that you know that we are working, here, in the real world where human beings are irrational, inconsistent, and, amazingly, often right even when they are wrong in how they explain it, which can drive some people crazy, it's up to you what you want to do. Misplaced Pages is highly inefficient, because it doesn't value the volunteer labor. That may be changing, Flagged revisions is a step toward that, and there are others that may eventually penetrate the severe conservatism that has, quite naturally, infected the place. ("Severe conservatism" means that whatever disturbs the status quo, no matter how much damage is being done, and no matter how clearly useful and rational the change might be, will be strongly resisted by those who have some excess power as a result of the status quo, which in a volunteer organization, means those who, as individuals, contribute the most work, often. Practically by definition, the system works for them, so why should it change? If not addressed, the situation will become more and more unstable, as editors burn out and either leave or become increasingly frustrated and therefore angry at the "vandals and POV pushers" whom they see as responsible for their increased workload. Misplaced Pages has been a bit of a Ponzi scheme, depending on a constant influx of new editors to take the place of those who burn out, are blocked, or simply move on because they got a life that places demands on their time. When I've looked at the edit history of an admin with 70,000 edits, and see that every minute or so, even several times a minute, for hours and hours on end in the middle of the night, he pushed a save button for content boringly presented to him by Twinkle or one of the other assistance tools, I begin to wonder what kind of person this takes. Dedicated, for sure. Then, of course, he feels entitled to exercise a little power. It's his project, after all.) --Abd (talk) 01:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Your request

Done, except for the talk page (since the only edit to it was Wikiproject tagging, and restoring that in your userspace would just mess with the Wikiproject). Sarcasticidealist (talk) 20:54, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all your work. If that was the only edit, no problem. If I did want to ask for restoration, I'd simply want the tags poked in the eye.... --Abd (talk) 20:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Because I'm not exactly clear on the reasons for the talk page's deletion, I've shot JzG a note asking if he'd mind if I undeleted. If there's some urgency, I can e-mail you the content straight away; otherwise, I'd rather hold off until I get his thoughts. Cheers, Sarcasticidealist (talk) 02:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

No harm in asking him. --Abd (talk) 04:07, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Restored. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Much thanks. Now I get to actually see the CANofworRms. I was warned I'd be eating worms if I got involved in this! --Abd (talk) 19:41, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

FYI: Removing sourced material

I was given the link to the policy you quoted, it came from an arbcom ruling: Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Hkelkar#Removal_of_sourced_edits_made_in_a_neutral_narrative_is_disruptive

I replied to your question about CF if you're interested in reading it. Phil153 (talk) 04:17, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. I've started gathering a list of other interesting rulings here if you are interested. Feel free to add additional ones as they present themselves.

Abd, you might be interested in the context of how Phil153 was given this particular reference. See the current discussion at Talk:Robert M Carter if you are interested. --GoRight (talk) 05:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. GoRight, I'm formally requesting that you inform me of any discussion that you consider might be of interest to me. If you ever do so and are pinged about canvassing, refer to this. However, if you choose, you can email me; and I will occasionally watch your edits. You know and I know that I'm independent and won't necessarily agree with you, that I would make no assumption that your position on a matter is correct, but would investigate as necessary before opining or reporting. I doubt you would waste my time. And thanks. There are some very interesting things going on right now, on and off-wiki. There is hope. --Abd (talk) 14:21, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I've looked at the dispute in Robert M. Carter and you are basically right; however, the problem is subtle enough that I'd suggest avoiding a battle over it, there is so much that is worse. Carter is right, science is supposed to be independent of funding; being a member of an advisory board of an organization that receives funding is hardly conflict of interest, unless he's paid large sums for the service, about which I have no idea. If income from "consulting" is relatively minor, it wouldn't establish serious conflict. That the funding of that organization is even mentioned in the article is undue weight. However, note that his defense against charges of conflict of interest is in the article. It's a little odd to have a defense in the article when there isn't any notable accusation. If there is a notable accusation, why isn't that in the article. Maybe you could put it in! That would confuse them! You might get reverted just out of habit. (Seriously, I've been learning a lot from reviewing the edits of Pcarbonn. He was really good at what he did, and he got a raw deal, I'd say. He actively sought and promoted NPOV, including when it meant inserting material contrary to his alleged bias.) --Abd (talk) 14:39, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Abd, the topic is more complex than you know. He has a massive conflict of interest. He also makes tons of money promoting himself as a paid speaker on global warming denial to businesses and organization, but there are no reliable sources that document this because no one writes about him (as a geologist, he's not very prominent). He had a page on site which said he was for hire which was toned down after I pointed this out.

Gee, no reliable sources! And we should take this into account? Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Now, I don't go around removing text that I think is true even if it isn't cited. I do find it a bit odd if someone has a conflict of interest because he's got opinions and is asked to speak about them. How much money does he make doing this? Should Misplaced Pages editors keep this alleged COI in mind when trying to balance the text of the article? But wouldn't that be introducing bias based on editor opinions and original research instead of reliable sources? These are just questions, I'm not assuming the answers. Yet. --Abd (talk) 23:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Look, here's what happened. An editor added this to the article, with no other commentary: Carter's website states that his research "has been supported by grants from competitive public research agencies, especially the Australian Research Council (ARC)," and that he "receives no research funding from special interest organisations such as environmental groups, energy companies or government departments.". There was no mention of his funding before that. This statement, which is merely Carter's POV and not a reliable source, strongly implies that he has nothing to gain financially from denying global warming, which is why it was added. This claim is absurdly false for the reason I mentioned and others now noted. Despite this, I left it in because it's sourced. I also did not - despite having the source - add in an RS statement that he's a member and adviser to front groups that do little more than lobby for the tobacco, timber and oil industries, because frankly I didn't care for the ensuing edit war by POV pushers (they'd tried hard to remove previous RS statements from a major newspaper that noted his lack of expertise in climate science). Some weeks later another whitewasher came in and started making the article even more praiseworthy, so I inserted the sourced sentence about his affiliations to balance the POV pushing.

Now GoRight comes in (he doesn't like global warming theory, and frequently edits global warming articles, something which I do not) and tries to remove "however", and makes other challenges which are false (see the recent talk page of the article). The changes appear designed to obscure the plain facts and happen all the time in these articles. GoRight may genuinely believe the article is not fair; fringe advocates are frequently seen a do-no-wrong heros (you saw that with Jed) and normal language is seen as an attack. Anyway, the use of "however" is ridiculously appropriate given the clear intention of his statement. If we're going make an editorial decision to keep his non reliable claims, the least we can do is point out where the scope of them conflicts with reliable sources. And however means "in spite of this", not "the preceding is false" as GoRight seems to think.

Anyway, I'm sure you've got better things to do on your talk page. I merely wanted to give a link to the source you couldn't find earlier, but GoRight chose to open the topic for discussion. Phil153 (talk) 01:10, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

And Phil, thanks for the citation. It's actually pretty common knowledge, even though it's also often neglected when some editor or group of editors think that "fringe views" should be ipso facto excluded, not merely balanced. --Abd (talk) 14:23, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

If you want to quote arbcom-created policy, then you must also subscribe to these: Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Fringe_science/Proposed_decision#Scientific_focus about to pass by the new committee, and Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Cold_fusion#Encyclopedic_coverage_of_science. Personally I think it's more helpful to use actual editorial argument than quote narrowly scoped policy. Phil153 (talk) 20:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

The question of "ArbComm-created policy" is a knotty one. Theoretically, ArbComm doesn't create policy, it recognizes it and enforces it when lesser mechanisms break down. As to the decisions (recent and upcoming) you cited, yes, I'm familiar with them. Your point? I don't see anything particularly new there. --Abd (talk) 23:26, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

My point is that blindly quoting knotty policy at editorial decisions, and doing so as if they're authoritative (as SA has frequently done and been admonished for with his "mainstream" stuff) is not a good way to go about solving editorial decisions. BRD is perfectly valid and isn't facilitated by quoting arbcom at people as "the right way" to do things. Phil153 (talk) 01:10, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Who did that? Of course BRD is "valid." Phil, who and what are you arguing with? As far as I recall, I simply noted that removing sourced material is generally not the best way to proceed. I never stated that there was a policy that *must be followed. All decisions, very few exceptions, are up to editorial consensus; the only question, really, is how many editors get involved. A few in an article, a few more with an RfC, maybe more in a noticeboard discussion or a mediation or an arbitration. Only at ArbComm is there really any other process than consensus, if we except admins taking matters in their own hands.... --Abd (talk) 02:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

ok, thanks for taking the time to respond. I think I may have misunderstood you. Phil153 (talk) 02:54, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Question

I have been in a minor revert war with user http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Rtol - He is not friendly... has called me names a couple of times... may have a conflict of interest... because he is a writer on the subject... in the sense that he has precluded information that is connected... hence narrowing the perspective of the subject in a way to make the understanding of the term less expansive in my opinion. He does not leave explanations of his edits (edit summaries). He does not sign his user name at the discussion page in the normal way. He has accused me of being anon. for some reason even though I leave reasons why I edit and always sign my comments... - Do you think I should try to keep making constructive changes to the page... or do you think I should back off and just stay away from it?

It seems to me like this person is doing a lot of things against guidelines... and it seems to me like the improvements that I think I am making are being reverted out of some kind of anger that he thinks maybe I am someone he somehow knows... or at least he implies that on the talk page. I do not know the guy from Adam... and edit the article because of interests only. I have noticed that you are open minded and good at figuring out strange situations... so ... maybe you could give me your opinion or even interact if you care to, after looking at the Energy economics discussion page... and article. Thanks. skip sievert (talk) 22:28, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, but do not edit war. Rather, seek to find consensus, both with this user, but ultimately among all editors. If there are only the two of you paying attention to the article, and you can't find agreement, then ask for comment from others, there are standard ways of doing that, besides what you have already done. Reverts are a last resort, and should reflect consensus; if any reverts you do are like this, you will be in no danger of edit warring sanctions, because you won't make repetitive reverts, but only one. I'll look at the editor's behavior, and at yours, and if I think it appropriate, I'll call it to the attention of administrators, but not before I discuss it with you both. My goal is generally to encourage the proper participation of all editors, no matter what their point of view. Whatever has happened in the past should be left there.... --Abd (talk) 00:29, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. I have not been able to get this other person to address the issues I have brought up. I also like the current existential approach you are suggesting. Mostly it seems I go by that. I have no luck trying to engage so far with the other user in a positive way... though I have tried and will continue to. Thanks. skip sievert (talk) 01:47, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

You did an excellent thing by seeking help (as did he). You actually sought it in the best place, he got some generic advice, which was correct, but probably not enough to educate him. Basically, when two editors can't find agreement on their own, seeking help from an uninvolved editor is probably the least disruptive first step, it's recommended in WP:DR. That editor does best by facilitating consensus between the two disputing editors, but may also confirm one side or the other as to content. 2:1 is still not consensus, though; ideally consensus is complete or almost complete, so there are further steps in DR, which generally requires involving more editors. That can take time. In the meantime, edit warring only inflames the situation; generally, unless a violation of policy is blatant and is a true emergency, as with biographies of living persons, poor content can stand for a while. When we have 2:1, we have a default (the "2"). So we will have a default in Energy economics quite quickly. But the best solution will involve you and Rtol coming to agreement, and, with improved communication, I don't see that as particularly difficult. He needs to learn that you are, here, a peer, you need no "credentials," and you need to, I'd say, recognize that he is probably a leading expert in the field and be very careful about assuming ignorance as the basis of his opinions. You'd probably be wrong about that! See you in article Talk. --Abd (talk) 14:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Standing Offer/Request

Given our past interactions on various topics I thought I would make the following offer.

If you ever have something you want me to offer an opinion on or that you feel I might personally be interested in anywhere on wikipedia, its talk pages, or within any of the official forums such as noticeboards, RfCs, RfAs, and the like, please contact me directly on my talk page and feel free to reference this standing request. I trust your judgment in deciding which topics might be of interest to me, and please keep me informed of any topics in general as well as items specifically involving you personally. --GoRight (talk) 00:46, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm currently working on the situation with Cold fusion, having seen what looks to me like involved administrator intervention on one side of an extended content dispute. If you have time, you might become familiar with the issues; in particular, see Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion, which resulted in a topic ban for Pcarbonn, a poster boy for civil POV-pushing, allegedly, though my opinion is that what he was "pushing" was closer to NPOV. But one side almost always looks at NPOV as POV. I've got some admin support, but don't think it's time to directly confront the issues, there is due process to be followed still. --Abd (talk) 14:13, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'll read up on it. Was there an Arbitration on this, I think? --GoRight (talk) 14:52, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Isn't that what I pointed you to? Any time you want, of course, you can see what I've been up to by looking at Special:Contributions/Abd, but I'd like you to stay as neutral as possible. There are some quite knotty problems with Cold fusion that ArbComm bailed on addressing, but some editors are assuming that the AC ruled on these. See what you think. Take your time, it's really easy to jump to conclusions here. There is a related arbitration, Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science that, last I looked, was in voting, where they take a closer look, but, in my opinion, still an inadequate one. I became aware of it before that, but by the time I became clear on what the issues are, they had moved on to voting. I'll discuss it more with you after you've read the Arbitration on Cold fusion. --Abd (talk) 16:50, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

"Isn't that what I pointed you to?" - LOL, so it was! I am so distracted lately I miss the obvious. I have skimmed through most of that but have not had time to go review the actual comments on the page itself to come to my own conclusions regarding Pcarbonn. I have also read the commentary here on your talk page on the topic. I will say that I certainly empathize with his fight against an entrenched status quo. This is exactly the same type of thing we see on the GW pages, as you know. Can you summarize why you think the ban is unjustified? --GoRight (talk) 20:50, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's only a tentative opinion, but it seems to me, reviewing Pcarbonn's edits, that he was "pushing" NPOV. If he arrived with an outside agenda -- that isn't crystal clear, but might be true -- he may have seen the article as biased, and attempted to remove the bias. Since to anyone with a bias, an NPOV article will appear biased, or, as a corollary, to such a person, a biased article with a bias matching that of the person may seem NPOV, the fact that someone has an external bias should not, by itself, be sufficient to result in a ban. Removing bias in existing articles brings in many editors. It's not harmful in itself if the editor respects behavioral guidelines, doesn't edit war, etc. I haven't reviewed Pcarbonn's old behavior, but recent behavior seemed to be toward balance in the article, and there is a significant example where he welcomed and encouraged the participation of an editor as being one of the few experts commenting on current research in the field, who is negative. The decision to ban seemed to be based most significantly on http://www.newenergytimes.com/news/2008/NET28.htm#wiki (an article he wrote for New Energy Times) on the Misplaced Pages situation. (Sorry about the nowiki link; the web site is blacklisted courtesy of JzG, now confirmed by, as I recall, Beetstra.) The article strikes me as quite neutral and unbiased. It's unusual for ArbComm to even allow consideration of external behavior like that, normally off-wiki behavior is considered irrelevant unless it amounts to harassment or the like. I've looked a bit at how the ArbComm decision was determined; the evidence cited in the decision seems a tad weak, a discussion on AN, for example, that went both ways, that did not seem to conclude that Pcarbonn was engaging in sanctionable behavior.

As an example, admin Ronnotel commented:

While I agree that dragging an on-Wiki dispute off-Wiki is never a good idea, I think we should primarily consider PCarbonn's on-Wiki contributions to the page and behavior before we start boiling up the tar. PCarbonn has worked diligently and in good faith. I see no reason based on his record to support a topic ban. Ronnotel (talk) 17:03, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

The record is full of comments like that. Given how much support was expressed for PCarbonn, for ArbComm to make a decision based on a "finding of fact" that isn't clearly and explicitly supported is rather odd. The diffs cited in the proposed finding of fact leave me with "huh?" Did they copy the wrong diff into the text?

Here is the final finding of fact: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion#Pcarbonn. I think it's the same evidence as in the proposed finding. It's absolutely the least clear of any finding I've ever seen, though I certainly haven't read the majority of ArbComm decisions. It looks very poorly researched and considered. But by no means have I yet reviewed all the evidence, I've been following JzG's trail of involved edits plus administrative actions, and trying to undo some of the damage. Eventually I may get to Pcarbonn. Right now, I'm just trying to get some pages from lenr-canr.org whitelisted, which, given that the pages were not placed there by a linkspammer, were apparently acceptable by a consensus of editors, there wasn't any apparent controversy over them, and, indeed, one of them was originally linked by an *opponent* of the webmaster (the alleged linkspammer, whose offense seems to be principally making contentious Talk page edits as IP and signing them with his real name and URL). The other was inserted by Pcarbonn, I think, but was likewise not controversial. We've been told that it should be easy to whitelist, that was an argument made supporting blacklisting when it was appealed; but it's turning out not to be, the request, fairly straightforward, from two editors, not contested there, or anywhere that I know of, is just sitting there. MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist#lenr-canr.org --Abd (talk) 01:35, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Very important point: a witch hunt is to be rigorously avoided. The community is divided on the issue of "fringe science." I see no reason to assume other than good faith on the part of those who may have acted in, for example, what I've called conflict of interest, though the technical Misplaced Pages term is that they are "involved," plus others, more technically neutral, may have acted in a simple assumption that someone they trust has asserted a position and they have not investigated deeply enough to see beyond that. Hence I'm starting with the lowest levels of WP:DR, always beginning with an assumption that simple edits or requests will be honored. One of the reasons why DR isn't always rigorously followed is that it takes time. An editor who is attached to an edit or article or result may escalate prematurely, may start edit warring and tendentious argument, incivility out of understandable frustration, and all the rest. I have, myself, a tendency to say too much; it's always a question for me as to how far I should restrain this. I want to make sure that an argument -- say for the undeletion of Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments -- has been presented with sufficient thoroughness that it isn't rejected because an important point is omitted, but I don't want to go to the point that arguments are being repeated or "nailed in." I don't want to waste the time of other editors, who may dislike it when they find themselves having to defend what seemed to them like an obvious conclusion (i.e., with the AfD mentioned, that it was snowing Delete). They may have made process errors, technically, but they are volunteers, and they are not obligated to always get it right. One remarkable thing about the Pcarbonn NET article is how far he went to rationalize his "opposition" and attribute good faith and even good sense to it. Misplaced Pages, I'm coming to think, needs more editors like this, not fewer. It's clear from the support shown in the Arbitration that many would agree. So how to deal with this without disruption? The errors that are made in trying to fix Misplaced Pages are typically to ignore the high cost of disruption and premature confrontation. When the ducks are in a row, opposition to constructive change tends to melt away with surprising rapidity. --Abd (talk) 15:12, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Hope you don't mind if I stick my head in. All other things set aside, the stated agenda finding is rock solid. Moreover to state that the community is (or at least was) divided on an issue at arbitration is missing the point--if the community were not divided the arbitration committee would not have had to get involved in the first place. Our policies need to be enforced, and Neutral point of view is our most important policy. --TS 21:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, in a way, Tony, you are butting in. However, I don't mind. Welcome to my Talk page. Here, have some tea!

When the community is divided and ArbComm reaches a finding that seems to take one side, normally ArbComm will, as part of the process, address the specific issues where the community is divided, doing so in such a way as to establish at least reasonable guidelines for behavior. It seems that they did not do that; however, I have not read all the comments and associated talk pages yet. When I look at the core decision, the finding leading to the topic ban of Pcarbonn, the explanation is totally inadequate to establish and justify the action. I read the evidence and come to opposite conclusions. I'm accustomed to much better than that from ArbComm. So my essential response to it: Puzzled.

I'm not sure that NPOV is our most important policy, but it's certainly up there, and is impossible to disentangle it from the other important ones. However, one of the reasons I question the decision (informally, here, please don't be confused about that!) is that the effect is likely a warping of NPOV, not NPOV. I have seen and am dealing with the fallout of this decision.

Above, you link to a lengthy discussion on AN, as if "the finding is rock solid." But if that finding had been solid, you also have implied that arbitration would not have been necessary. That seems a tad circular to me. ArbComm likewise cited that, as I recall, as if it were conclusive, which it most certainly was not. Have you read the article in NET written by Pcarbonn? It seems to me to be a quite careful and fairly neutral description of the situation on Misplaced Pages; pretty much an Apology for Misplaced Pages process, fairly well-written. I don't read it as an "admission of an agenda," nor as any declared intention to do battle, any more than I've seen many editors who proclaim a dedication to NPOV and other project values. Now, maybe I'm wrong about all this. I'm not taking this back to ArbComm, or anywhere but mention in certain Talk pages, perhaps, because I'm not sufficiently certain to do so, plus, even if I were certain, I'd need, then, to take this back up WP:DR, step by step, avoiding, as far as possible, disruption. It's easy to disrupt the project being right. I wouldn't challenge an ArbComm decision unless I had high confidence of success, probably including opinions from arbitrators based on private consultation. (That could be tricky, in itself.)

ArbComm decisions must be respected and not directly challenged; however, that doesn't mean that we can't question them or notice shortcomings in them. ArbComm may make decisions for any of many reasons, and not all of them are necessarily stated. However, here, as you acknowledged, the community is divided, and there is a current arbitration on fringe science that more directly addresses the issues, but, so far, it looks to me like it's not going to go far enough; if my judgment is correct, we will see further conflict. Simply affirming what we already know isn't going to cut the mustard.

Thanks for visiting my Talk page. Welcome back, any time. --Abd (talk) 22:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, well the finding is that Pcarbonn came to Misplaced Pages with the specific intention of making Cold fusion appear more credible. That merits a topic ban straight away. You say that "if that finding had been solid, you also have implied that arbitration would not have been necessary." No. The fact is solid, and the community ban discussion did reveal very strong support for a ban, however there was a lot of "bickering", as Jehochman puts it. There seems to be no doubt that PCarbonn came to Misplaced Pages for the purpose of advocacy, but some editors even defended his "right" to do that.

If you think NPOV is not the most important policy, well I'm sorry but you're simply wrong. It's the one policy which Jimbo Wales has declared to be "non-negotiable."

On PCarbonn's New Energy Times piece, I think the nicest thing I can say is that at least on that occasion he chose an appropriate and sympathetic venue to misrepresent the outcome 2004 Department of Energy review. No editor can ever be permitted to abuse Misplaced Pages like that. --TS 23:23, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, you've got my interest! What was the outcome of the 2004 DOE Review, and how did he misrepresent it? (I do not agree that to express a biased point of view outside of Misplaced Pages is "to abuse Misplaced Pages," but let's set that aside for a moment.) --Abd (talk) 23:42, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not here to refight those battles. The article at present seems to be balanced. --TS 23:50, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) No battling is expected or permitted here. You stated something interesting, I asked you to be specific. No obligation. The article "at present" is in flux on this. I made an edit adding exact quotation from the DOE report and it was reverted. I did not edit war, but discussed. It's still being worked on, by other editors. The article is more balanced than it was when I made my edit, and probably than it was when Pcarbonn began his work.

There are a whole series of misconceptions that those new to this topic hold, and likewise some familiar with it, perhaps too familiar (i.e., familiar with old ideas, almost twenty years out of date). First of all, "cold fusion" is generally rejected, including by the community of CMNS researchers. Whatever is happening in those cells isn't "fusion" as it has been understood. I'll note that the 2004 report isn't about "cold fusion." It's about "Low energy nuclear reactions." I can't put a convenient link to the report here, courtesy of JzG and his friends at meta. However, it's easy to find, just google "lenr-canr.org 2004 DOE report." First hit, of course. "Cold fusion" is mentioned this way: In 1987 Pons and Fleischman first reported the production of “excess” heat in a Pd electrochemical cell, and postulated that this was due to D-D fusion (D=deuterium), sometimes referred to as “cold fusion.” Practically nobody is claiming D-D fusion any more, and, indeed, there is no single hypothesis of what is happening in the cells (and in other "cold" experiments) that is generally accepted even within the field. There are hypotheses worthy of investigation, though. Some explain the excess heat as some kind of general -- i.e., repeated -- experimental error, such as unexpected and uncompensated recombination of D or H and O in the cell. Others note findings of radiation, which would confirm that some kind of low energy nuclear reaction is taking place. Others find transmuted elements, which, by definition, would mean nuclear reactions. Quite a bit of work has been done since the 2004 review; however, since you commented on that, what did Pcarbonn say about it in the article?

Here is the article (there is another report in the previous issue of NET, but this is the one that seems to have been most cited, and it has the most detail, I think): http://www.newenergytimes.com/news/2008/NET28.htm#wiki. Again, sorry for the nowiki URL, we can also thank JzG for this, he also blacklisted newenergytimes.org; Durova requested delisting, I supported it, totally inadequate evidence was presented for blacklisting, there wasn't any linkspamming, but the delisting was denied. Apparent reason: "fringe." I'll next, when I can get to it, make some whitelist requests.

Here is what he wrote on the 2004 DOE report. I don't see it as supporting what you said at all, that's why I asked.

The 2004 version of the article was featured on the front page of Misplaced Pages, recognition of the page's quality. Since then, content requirements in Misplaced Pages got more restricted, and controversial topics must now be supported by sources that are more authoritative and trusted as reliable. For this reason, some editors, including me, brought in references such as those from the 1989 and 2004 Department of Energy Cold Fusion review.

Contrary to what most scientists think, these two Department of Energy reviews provide plenty of evidence that supports the view that the cold fusion controversy is far from over. They confirmed that cold fusion is a continuing controversy, not a closed case of pathological science.

Thus, editors defending the pathological science opinion fiercely resisted the improvements to include references from the 2004 Department of Energy review, in effect conducting censorship. Mediator Seicer was courageous enough to defend the Misplaced Pages policy of reliable sources, and this insured that the references to the Department of Energy reviews remained in the article, thus presenting a balanced view of the field.

Now, he's not exactly correct. "Cold fusion" was a mistake of Fleischmann's, but, on the other hand, Fleischmann's actual work wasn't "pathological science." He simply made too much of a revolutionary hypothesis as an explanation of his results. Carbonnelle is using "cold fusion" as might any nonspecialist, as a reference to some kind of nuclear reaction hypothesized as taking place, even if it isn't D-D fusion. And the DOE Report doesn't "reject" this, it simply considers it unproven, which was the consensus in 1989 as well. It's not clear what a review today would conclude. But what is actually in the reports has often been misrepresented, and that is why PCarbonn wrote what he wrote. I don't know that I would word it as "they confirmed that cold fusion is a continuing controversy," that's incautious synthesis, perhaps. But they certainly suggested that continued research was appropriate. If "controversy" were closed, they would not recommend that. I've looked at some of Pcarbonn's work. He was pretty careful; my guess is that he simply tried to report more completely what the 2004 DOE report concluded, and it was reverted by those who considered it "too much detail" or introducing "POV spin." And he's right: these are tactics used by the "pathological science" crowd, quite often, to keep reliably sourced material out of articles. The result is spin in favor of some kind of "general consensus," as seen by the editors, excluding minority opinion even when it is notable and reliably sourced, and sometimes when it is not even minority opinion among those knowledgeable on the topic. ArbComm may come down on this issue soon, there are proposed principles and findings that look fairly good. There are NPOV solutions that respect WP:UNDUE, that don't involve removal of accurate and reliably sourced material, and, from what I've seen, these solutions have been rejected by the antipseudoscience crowd. The solution is subarticles, so that every article is balanced *and* complete. As an example, see the deletion of Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments and the redirection of Condensed matter nuclear science plus the out-of-process deletion of Talk:Condensed matter nuclear science. I just managed to get the Talk page restored, and the Calorimetry article has been userfied to User:Abd/Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments. The major editor of the Calorimetry article is an expert critic of "cold fusion," not Pcarbonn as JzG implied in proposing the AfD, which was closed less than one day after being opened; the only editor, as far as I can tell, notified of the AfD was PCarbonn, who was, of course, under a topic ban and unable to object. In any case, these are all minor things, really, though there are some implications. I'm proceeding step by step to undo what damage I can.

Thanks for dropping by. I hope I haven't been rude to you, I assume that people who get by the warning at the top of my Talk page are consenting adults (or the equivalent) and ready for frank and honest discussion. More tea?--Abd (talk) 00:52, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi

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

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

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

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

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

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

Topic Ban

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pseudoscience, Fringe science, or Questionable science

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arguing with JzG

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RE: Your deletion of Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments

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

Interesting secondary sources

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

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

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

More traditional news sources:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How about this for a fringe publication:

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

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

What's your read so far?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

reverting banned editors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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