Misplaced Pages

Actually not just me, but also "my supporters" as you call them, help develop the userfied version -- we were in the process of expanding the mega society article when the AfD guillotine came down. Anyway, that's besides the point, I am heartened that you seem to be indicating that the userfied article can be restored in good faith. In view of this I guess it is rather academic, but why did you discount the votes of, say, User:GregorB or User:Canon? They are not new users, not did I solicit them. I presume by Tim Shell you mean Tim Smith?

On a more general point I am disturbed at the divergence between procedure and practice in the AfD process. And it's not just a question of vague wording -- votes should not be the determining factor in the AfD (although in the DRV, yes); the guidelines are quite clear about this. And they are clear that if a consensus is not reached the default should be keep. There seems no way to address procedural errors within the AfD process, within the DRV process itself. --Michael C. Price 16:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Speaking as admin now, and not as the closer, I can say that there was no flaw in this AfD in my opinion. Administrators are given "discretion," remember; although it is not formally written within policy that the standard for DRV review is what the law calls "abuse of discretion," admin discretion is still broad, and it is understood that two different admins might make different decisions in close cases: this is what the concept of discretion implies. One very common case where admin discretion is employed is discounting sockpuppets. This AfD began with a slew of IP addresses voting "keep" without offering a rationale. It is a fact of administrative life that, absent very compelling circumstances, this assures the article is of questionable merit. Floods of IP and new votes are very, very, very, very, very counterproductive: I cannot stress that enough, obviously. Unless many established Wikipedians appear to agree with these floods, and barring the intervention of an unprecedentally-powerful advocate, the article will be deleted. This is what the guideline is referring to when it says "AfD is not a vote-count": if two experienced Wikipedians say to delete an article, and five hundred IP address say to keep it, it will probably be deleted (of course, the admin checks the article to ensure that the Wikipedians' arguments are reasonable as well.) If the maxim "AfD is not a vote" is invoked 20 times a day at AfD, in 18 of those cases, it is invoked to ignore "a raw majority" of sockpuppets and new users arguing without sufficient background in policy. Needless to say, we get these sockpuppet floods in great numbers. Occasionally, perhaps, an article of merit is deleted because it so happens that it is supported by counterproductive means -- if that happens, the article's supporters need to understand that in the merits of the article, and not in the intricacies of process, lay their best hope. Best wishes, Xoloz 17:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I do understand the concept of discretion but that is not what I saw operating here: discretion operates within bounds and these bounds in practice appear to bear no relation to documented policy, although I do take on board your point about IP addresses. Even if practice is not going to change (and I suspect it isn't) the policy documents need to be updated to reflect this. Returning to the specific DRV, can I remind you of my question of how you discounted the votes of User:GregorB or User:Canon? --Michael C. Price 18:33, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

User:GregorB offered a very brief comment not supported by policy. User:Canon did take the time to offer analysis at DRV, but he had been among the first voters at the AfD to offer a mere "Keep" without explanation; therefore, I assumed he had been solicited by someone. Best wishes, Xoloz 15:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not impressed by your assumptions. --Michael C. Price 16:00, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

It was eventually (but far from initially) admitted by User Canon that he is Chris Cole, an officer of the Mega Society. Therefore, his participation in the deletion and deletion review processes arguably constitutes a conflict of interest and an instance of "shilling". DaturaS 17:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Why? It is a conflict of interest, perhaps, were he the closing administrator, but I see nothing preventing him from voicing his opinion. -- Avi 17:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Hillman/Dig

Hi, Michael, I think you will be interested in this MfD. ---CH 23:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

RFC

Hi. The RFC I was responding to was posted to Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Religion and philosophy. There wasn't a separate discussion, it just links to the talk page. --Alecmconroy 18:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Shalom Michael,Ijust saw your message today.im on aol and am blocked from editing every other time i log in for some reason about subjects i never posted about SOOO I dont often read my talk page. my Email is nazirenemystic@aol.com. thats more relible.NazireneMystic 01:41, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Michael C. Price, see my reply to your post on my user page. --Ovadyah 02:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: FYI Mega Society Judgement

Thanks for taking the time. The new article looks good to me, it is going to be much harder to shoot down... GregorB 18:28, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Inflation

I understand your concern, but it doesn't need to be taken to talk first, although I should have been clearer and noted that your comment appears to be OR. By whom is it seen as today's version of a steady state theory? In fact the two are fundamentally different. Hell, I can't figure out how steady state theory fits in that cat: it was not a pseudoscience, it was a scientically valid theory theory that was falsified, there's a big difference. In any case I placed a fact tag on that statement meaning a cite is required. •Jim62sch• 10:12, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

The similarity is that both the steady-state universe and eternal inflation adhere to the perfect cosmological principle -- although the latter on a scale beyond that of the observable universe. I don't regard this as OR and I'll see if I can find a citation. --Michael C. Price 10:55, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Citations added: Past-Eternal inflation can be viewed as a mainstream steady state theory., since it adheres to the perfect cosmological principle on the largest scale. --Michael C. Price 11:48, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Orthomolecular medicine

Recruiting meatpuppets to overwhelm legitimate edits of articles is not appropriate Misplaced Pages behavior. Please stop encouraging vandalism of the pseudoscience article. -- 70.232.110.230 19:19, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Stop pushing your POV. --Michael C. Price 19:22, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm happy to include both POVs: that's what NPOV is about. The current articles fail to acknowledge the mainstream viewpoint. -- 70.232.110.230 19:33, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Misplaced Pages under the three-revert rule, which states that nobody may revert a single page more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the effect of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cri du canard (talk • contribs) 23:27, 7 August 2006 (UTC) (also formerly 70.232.110.230)

Hi Michael. I think you doing a good job on repelling the "pseudo--" stuff disparagement. Sorry if we're all a little tense right now, I know I am pretty insulted about the "PS" nonsense, too. Although I wrote immediately after you to maintain chronological sequence, my quote & request was for 70.232.110.230's demonstration of hard facts, I should have additionally addressed him directly by his id number. Sorry for the confusion, I have now added 70.232's correct number so everyone is clear who I am requesting add'l sourcing from. You might want to delete your reply, since my inadequate id is the source of contention, thread control is going wild already. --69.178.41.55 18:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the reminder -- straightened things out. It might be a good idea if you created login account/user name....... :-) --Michael C. Price 20:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Wow, it's like trying to reason with a primal force of nature. This person seems intent on wrecking the orthomed related pages and billboarding any disparaging link that can be twisted to his pov. He's invoking Ackoz(= Azmoc), an indfinitely blocked identity or editor. What next?--TheNautilus 05:49, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Reason is a waste of time with this sort. We'll have get him blocked over a 3RR violation, which requires coordination amongst the OM friendly. What do you think? --Michael C. Price 06:44, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Uh...

Moved to MWI talk page -- your edits were probably clashing with mine, or there's some problem with an old talk page version being reverted back. Should be okay now. --Michael C. Price 00:26, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Semiprotection for Physics article

I'm willing to semiprotect it, but there doesn't seem to be a consensus for this action on the talk page. I think the policy is wrong:general articles such as that one should be easily semiprotected without encountering wikirocracy.--CSTAR 03:14, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't quite follow your answer, but you're right there is no consensus, so I withdraw my request (for the moment). --Michael C. Price 08:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, there are all sorts of procedural obstacles for doing anything which restrict freedom of editing. However, for general articles (with higher visibility) semiprotection should be no big deal.--CSTAR 13:50, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Teaching physics, the contemporary way

http://www.lassp.cornell.edu/~cew2/P209/part11.pdf and here:

http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~phys16/Textbook/ch11.pdf Have a look at chapter 11.8.

Already read them. --Michael C. Price 19:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Based on your edits it seems that you haven't understood. Try reading again or taking the respective course Ati3414 17:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

That's right, if someone disagrees with you it's because they're stupid or ignorant, not you. Thanks for the info, O wise one. --Michael C. Price 17:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't say that Ati3414 20:15, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Please stop removing my POV tag

I object to the POV of the lead paragraph. -- Cri du canard 20:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

And I am happy with it. --Michael C. Price 20:14, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but that you are happy with it is necessary, but not sufficient, to remove the POV tag. -- Cri du canard 01:59, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Same logic applies to its insertion. --Michael C. Price 06:36, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

The fact that you say that shows you greatly misunderstand Misplaced Pages POV tags. The tag is a flag of a lack of consensus over whether the article complies with NPOV. To claim that there needs to be a consensus over the addition of the tag is false. The fact that three separate editors have complained about the pro-minority-POV-bias of the article shows that there is not consensus, and that is sufficient to add the tag. Consensus is needed before the tag can be removed. -- Cri du canard 12:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Mediation

FYI, you've been listed as an involved party at Misplaced Pages:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-08-09 Orthomolecular medicine and related pages. My advice: ignore the case until it affects you personally, or you are asked for direct involvement. linas 14:26, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that's exactly what I shall do. --Michael C. Price 16:59, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Photon mass

Sorry, you cannot say that the photon mass is E/c^2. This simply gives a lot of ammunition to dozens of crackpots . Especially in light of the many experiments that constrain the photon ONLY "mass" to about 6*10^-17 eV which is about 17 orders of magnitude smaller than the 3eV you would get by applying m=E/c^2. Now, if you want wiki to be the place that encourages the crackpots, this is another story, just say so. Ati3414 17:58, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't say "the photon mass is E/c^2" nor "that there is no such thing as relativistic mass ". If you have trouble reading English, just say so. --Michael C. Price 18:02, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Please look at the sentence that I keep deleting and you keep putting back in Ati3414 18:04, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

The clause is "The relativistic mass of such a particle may be taken to be its energy divided by c. " That implies neither of your above claims about what I said. --Michael C. Price 18:08, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

"Such particle" in the context is the photon. Therefore it means m_photon=e/c^2 where e is the energy of the photon Ati3414 18:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Which implies neither of your above claims about what I said. I'm glad you raised the 3RR issue -- you've motivated me to investigate the reporting procedure. --Michael C. Price 18:37, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

You obviusly can't read English, nor do you understand physics. As to 3RR , I can report you just the same, BFD.Ati3414 19:59, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead, that's your priviledge. --Michael C. Price 20:02, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Kinetic energy of single particles

Does not exist as an objective thing. Proof: Translate to a frame where the molecule is at rest, and kinetic energy is gone, poof. Kinetic energy is a property of systems, not things. It is not stored in THINGS, but in the fabric of spacetime itself, as Wheeler and Taylor note. You have to go to a system of 2 or more molecules to get kinetic energy which can't be made to go away by choice of frame. THAT energy is weighable. And that frame where it can be weighed as invariant mass, along with the rest energies of the particles themselves, is the COM frame. SBHarris 20:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, Wheeler. I often have a problem with this "if it ain't a tensor or is geometry it don't exist" position. Can't say I agree -- seems a misuse of langauge. Anyway, it can still be weighed, no matter how you define it. --Michael C. Price 21:04, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Point is there's only two ways to weigh it: 1) get into its rest frame (in which case the kinetic energy and the mass associated with it goes away), or 2) Trap it, in which case you have introduced a second object (the box) and now have a system of two objects and and must weigh in the COM frame of same. So kinetic energy (KE) is only weighable as a system property, which is why it only has invariant mass as a system property.

No geometry or tensors, here! Think of two equal mass M particles, headed in opposite directions, at a mutual separation velocity we'll call V. All the KE is in particle #1, as seen from viewpoint of #2. But KE is all in #2 when seen from #1. And divided equally between them when seen from the COM frame, in which they are each headed away with equal velocity V/2.

But how much IS the KE? It's not the same in these scenarios. From the rest frame view of either particle, system KE is (1/2)MV^2. From the COM frame where both particles move at V/2, the KE of each particle is (1/2)M *(V/2)^2 = (1/8) MV^2 for a combined KE of (1/4) MV^2. We just lost half of our KE by chosing that frame. Now, how much mass and WEIGHT did we lose? If you're convinced we can weigh KE, which KE value do we weigh? This will either be immediately apparent to you, or else you'll learn something by figuring it out. You see, you can't get away from the system problem if you want to talk about mass. Nothing but algebra is needed, but even so you do have to get used to the spooky relativistic proposition that energy is not localizable. SBHarris 21:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't buy it. The algebra is equivalent to the tensor or frame argument. I can transform away velocity in a Galilean frame -- that doesn't mean things don't move. For the same reason "unlocalisable" energy is not spooky -- just frame dependent, which is why we use the Stress-energy-momentum pseudotensors when we have to. I know your position is a popular one, but it boils down to how we want to use the langauge; it doesn't have physical content (our positions are not empirical distinguishable). --Michael C. Price 00:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Blatent lies

The orthomolecular medicine article currently contains a statement that is utterly, totally false. I am not deleting it because I'm already sick of the lunacy of the dispute.

"Scientific research has found no benefit from orthomolecular therapy for any disease."

Any disease? Really? Scurvy, anyone? We are now denying that vitamin C cures scurvy? Feel free to start whatever proceeddings are needed to ban Cri du Canard as a vandal/crank. I've had enough of this non-sense. linas 14:25, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

It is from a reliable source, so you can't delete it without consequences. Scurvy, vit. C? What's that got to do with OM? Keep in mind guys, your edit histories are under observation, and there is accruing massive evidence of conspiracy against other editors, bad faith editng on your parts, as well as failure to assume good faith. Your words above are quite incriminating. -- Fyslee 22:36, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually it is not a reliable source -- it hasn't been through peer-review. --Michael C. Price 23:11, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

There are other types of reliable sources recognized by Misplaced Pages. It also happens to be a summary of the published scientific record, which has been peer-reviewed. Since you claim it's not a reliable source, please provide the precise quotes from the policy page to back up your claim. -- Fyslee 23:17, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I am deeply troubled by your attitude on this page Michael, particularily the lack application of WP:NPOV. Further to your comment on Cri's talk page: "Restoring text deleted in bad faith is not in violation of 3RR.", that in fact can contribute to 3rr. The only exeptions are in the case of biographies of living people, banned users, or blatent vandalism, of the "ERIC IS A FAG" kind. Allegations of concerted action have been made against you and a fellow editor which are very worrying after reviewing some of the evidence and may neccesitate a review of some of those editing the page. I suggest that you review some of Misplaced Pages cores polies very carefully regarding some of your interpratations of the rules. Jefffire 14:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

See WP:VAND#Types_of_vandalism

Sneaky vandalism

Vandalism which is harder to spot. Adding misinformation, changing dates or making other sensible-appearing substitutions and typos.

Canard is adept at adding misinformation. --Michael C. Price 16:12, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

3RR and AGF on orthomolecular medicine

• 10:55 am
• 10:37 am
• 9:52 am

-- Cri du canard 13:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

• 11:27 am

-- Cri du canard 13:37, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

1. Anthony Aguirre, Steven Gratton, Steady-State Eternal Inflation, Phys.Rev. D65 (2002) 083507,