Misplaced Pages

I am sorry to object to your last AE comment (I usually agree with your judgement), however I simply do not think that you can declare "fringe" any source based on its citation (and use this as a reason for sanctions). There are lots of sources with zero citation index in bibliographic databases. That does not make any of them "fringe" or inappropriate for use in Misplaced Pages. Thanks, My very best wishes (talk) 18:39, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not considering this person's work fringe science because of its position on a citation index. I'm considering it fringe science because it is a self-published book that claims to disprove Albert Einstein's work but has not received any sort of mention in any source - scientific, reliable or otherwise - that can be found. It's hard to get more fringe-y.  Sandstein  19:09, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

What you are talking about is merely a convenience link to English translation. This is actual source/reference, and I have no idea how often it was quoted in other Russian sources, for example. Most important, this book does not disprove anything in SRT. To the contrary, it explains (in one of possible ways) why SRT is so true. Speaking about your proposed sanction, please realize: this is equal to permanent outing of my account. I can promise never edit this page about Ives again, never file AE requests again, or admit an error of judgement and have a wikibreak for a month, possibly enforced by a self-imposed block. That's OK. However, I most probably will never edit here again after receiving such editing restriction. Please realize that... My very best wishes (talk) 21:35, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I can't read Russian, but considering that nowadays almost all serious physics publications except those aimed at laypeople are in English, the lack of any citations or other reaction whatsoever in English to the English translation, in addition to the extraordinary claims apparently advanced by the author, are, for me, sufficient grounds to determine that the work represents fringe science that should not form the basis of any of our content about science. As to your outing concerns, I don't see how the proposed restriction could make you identifiable - considering that the author apparently died in 2006, that's probably not who you are. Your proposed alternative remedies wouldn't help, as they are not suited to prevent what I think is the problem here - you edit-warring to use non-reliable sources as the basis of articles. However, if associating you with this author is a problem for you, an alternative sanction could be a restriction from using any source as the basis of article content about theories or hypotheses in physics if that source is not a peer-reviewed publication or a textbook in English by a reputable scientific publisher.  Sandstein  21:52, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

What he is talking about are not extraordinary claims, but physical explanations of several well known relativistic effects in framework of electrodynamics (in full agreement with SRT). Do you really believe that "lack of any citations or other reaction whatsoever in English" invalidates any source? Maybe ~20-30% of scientific papers published in English have zero citations. Surely, arbitrators did not mean to count all such publications "fringe", would not you agree? And I doubt that official WP:RS policy considers sources with zero citation unreliable. My very best wishes (talk) 22:09, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Sandstein: My very best wishes may be using an idiosyncratic definition of "outing" to mean that they will be "out" of Misplaced Pages (i.e. no longer editing Misplaced Pages). A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:10, 12 January 2014 (UTC) ( Thanks, that makes sense.  Sandstein  22:22, 12 January 2014 (UTC))

As explained above, it's not a matter of (only) citation numbers, but the English version being a self-published work (apparently no serious scientific publisher was interested in the translation?) combined with an absolute lack of any reaction by the scientific public whatsoever (no media articles, reviews etc.), and the extraordinary claims the work apparently makes (by which I mean, claims that are so novel or peculiar that one would expect some sort of response by the scientific community if the claims were even remotely plausible).  Sandstein  22:20, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

First of all, most claims by this book are not at all novel. And here I would like to quote my "content opponent", Urgent01 . He tells: "There is absolutely nothing in Lomize's "From High School Physics to Relativity" that is not already thoroughly discussed in countless more reputable and verifiable references." I do not necessarily agree. That is what he thinks. According to him, this is simply another book on the subject, and there are many hundred books on SRT. So, it comes at no surprise that a self-published English translation of a book, which is possibly well known in Russia, did not bring much attention. So, a non-notable book? Yes, maybe. A fringe? No. Also keep in mind that widely cited publications in science are those about discoveries. This is a book on teaching/presenting SRT, and the overall approaches to teaching Physics in US and Soviet Union are very different. Yet another reason for the book not be cited. My very best wishes (talk) 22:46, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I just checked: 33,000 hits in Russian internet. My very best wishes (talk) 00:12, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

So, here are my arguments: (a) my edits like this (diffs you provided on AE) actually insert a reference to the Russian book (please check), and the link to self-published English translation was provided merely as a "convenience link"; (b) this Russian book is not "fringe", and therefore such edits are not covered by the "fringe science" discretionary sanctions (I just checked the case, and the teaching approach described in the book hardly belongs even to alternative formulations); (c) I did edit war, just as my content "opponent", which might be a reason for a block if the matter was timely brought to 3RR noticeboard (there was no 3RR violation by anyone). I apologize for that and promise be more careful in the future; (d) I do not see any evidence of systematic COI problems on my part - I edited a lot of materials about people I knew or related to my work and never had any problems (that was the first episode, which could be interpreted this way). I would highly appreciate if we could discuss these matters here prior to issuing any sanctions. At the very least, please tell me here in advance if you are going to proceed with sanctions, even after receiving this clarification. Thank you, My very best wishes (talk) 01:39, 13 January 2014 (UTC)