Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Gregory Goble (talk | contribs) at 22:13, 26 December 2011 (→edit References to Pseudoscience Should Be Moved to Historical Footnotes: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Re: Battle of San Juan

Hi, I'm removed the text accidentally added to Template:Campaignbox French Revolutionary Wars: Anglo-Spanish War (1796) (which is what caused the Anglo-Spanish war paragraphs to appear in every article that used this template, including Battle of San Juan). Everything now seems fine. Cheers, Albrecht (talk) 20:18, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Cold fusion

I disagree with your recent deletion of any post-2004 mention -- actually, any mention -- of the most recent peer-reviewed research from the introduction to Cold fusion, and your subsequent deletion of the conclusions of the 2004 DOE report. I propose that we discuss this at Talk:Cold fusion. IwRnHaA (talk) 06:13, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe I posted it

Was it not clear in the COI report? ScienceApologist (talk) 20:55, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Olorinish, you may be interested in another example of smearing by ScienceApologist here. Ronnotel has also reported another example. I'll let you judge. Pcarbonn (talk) 10:18, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion

I have nominated Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Misplaced Pages's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. Pcap ping 01:47, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Pcarbonn authority

I have a specific proposal for “Pcarbonn authority”:

1. Anoint an administrator with expertise in technical matters with “Pcarbonn authority”: the power to ban any editor for three months from a particular article on the fringe sciences or narrowly defined range of fringe-science articles.
2. To solicit the administrator on a specific topic, you nominate an outside article to serve as the template for the the tone of what should be considered reliable sources. It cold fusion’s case, it would be Physics World Mar 1, 1999 article, Whatever happened to cold fusion?. The administrator may use only the “grin test” to satisfy him or herself that a given article may be used as the template.
3. Refer the admin with “Pcarbonn authority” to the relevant edits and discussion threads and request the editor be given a 3-month ban on that particular topic.
4. The only decision for the admin to make is “whether or not the offending editor has a consistent pattern of edits that clearly flout the tone of the reliable source template and which have the effect of significantly ennobling the art and giving it greater credibility than is merited.”
5. The only remedy for the banned editor would be a request at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration to undo the ban. Like any RfA, they can refuse to accept it for consideration. There would be no WP:wheelwarring allowed and no whinning to bureaucrats like Rlevse.

Whatcha think? Greg L (talk) 02:47, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Greg, thanks for the note. My first reaction to your proposal is that I like it. Of course getting it and its staffing procedures approved could be tough.

Wow, things are really getting intense at the evidence page. Pcap essentially called me an idiot and proposed deleting a wikipedia page I started. I guess that to him, all the work I have done on the page, like changing the lead image, totally changing the structure of the article, adding the Physics Today and Discover articles in the face of opposition, and keeping sane while dealing with Pierre, Dan, and SA, don't count for much. Olorinish (talk) 04:11, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

• I’d like to help on the book-burning issue but I have no expertise whatsoever on WP policies regarding books and don’t know how this particular book article fits with current policy.

  Setting aside existing policy, I do have an opinion though as to what I think is the right thing to do here. I would say that since the fringe-sciences is a special group of articles on Misplaced Pages with its own set of unusual circumstances, and since it’s hard enough keeping our fringe-science articles neutral, cutting this book article the maximum amount of slack is certainly in order. What with 6,930,119 articles on en.Misplaced Pages, one of which is an an individual episode  of Beavis and Butt-head, there ought to be room for a article on a controversial science subject for God’s sake. If you find that a compelling argument, let me know on my talk page and I’ll post it there. Greg L (talk) 05:45, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Articles on nuclear reactions

Olorinish, you said : "Please list the three articles that you think are most persuasive of nuclear reactions." I wish you had read our articles, or what is left of it. I would suggest you read the following articles : Iwamura 2002 and Mosier-Boss 2008. Full reference are in the cold fusion article. Pcarbonn (talk) 08:57, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

collapsing Talk:Cold fusion#Jed's travelling IP roadshow

I recently collapsed a discussion that I thought was not appropriate to a Talk page and you reverted me with the edit summary "This section is relevant, especially since I posted a warning about it to AN."

• In what way do you think that discussion concerns changes to the Cold fusion article (per WP:TALK)?
• What do you mean you "posted a warning about it to AN"?

Regards, --Art Carlson (talk) 20:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I posted this warning to the Administrators Noticeboard because I would like someone to get Jed to stop posting so much stuff that doesn't help the article. I thought it would be confusing if people went to the cold fusion page and couldn't see the text I was discussing. Hopefully someone will ban anonymous users from posting or something like that. Olorinish (talk) 20:24, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like we agree this material is not appropriate but were using different strategies to get rid of it. In this case, I don't think Jed is the only problem. After all, it was LeadSongDog that started the section with a pretty useless list of IP addresses. I also think you are confounding unhelpful contributions (a problem) and anonymous contributions (annoying) and contributions from an IP address (no problem at all, as long as the editor can be identified). I'll wait to see if an admin responds to your request before I take any further action. --Art Carlson (talk) 21:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks.

--Abd (talk) 01:59, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Cold fusion mediation

I have been asked to mediate the content dispute regarding Cold fusion. I have set up a separate page for this mediation here. You have been identified as one of the involved parties. Please read through the material I have presented there. Thank you. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:23, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Why anti-CF?

Just out of curiosity, do you think the cold fusion article should depend more on peer reviewed sources and less on newspaper articles than it does now? What is your background with the issue, and how have you arrived at your point of view? 208.54.5.65 (talk) 22:43, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

To determine, in an NPOV-way, the status of the field, we should use sources which describe the scientific consensus. In this post , I pointed to established MAGAZINES which cover science news very well in order to do this. I am in favor of including links to claims of successful CF experiments, but I am not in favor of inferring from those claims that the reputation of the field has improved significantly since 1990.

I do have a scientific background, although I have never worked in fusion or electrochemistry beyond work for classes. I am fascinated by cold fusion because it shows how scientific knowledge is checked by other scientists so that there is a virtually monotonic increase in knowledge about the world. It is also an example of how science advances even when people make flawed decisions. The great success of science is caused not by human perfection, but instead by the social process of checking the work of others in a public way. The best book on the subject is Bad Science by Gary Taubes; I suggest you read it if you haven't already.

Keep in mind that if people really had a procedure for producing cold fusion, they could publish it in a journal somewhere, have public demonstrations, or get a patent. It would be hard to get it accepted by the top journals and by the patent office, but if they had really good data, they could do it. The fact that they don't tells me they don't have really good data, which is consistent with the fact that the Coulomb repulsion is just way bigger than the thermal energy possessed by deuterons at room temperature. I am curious, what is your background with the issue, and how have you arrived at your point of view? Olorinish (talk) 14:24, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't make sense, because there have been thousands of journal articles and dozens of patents already. Why would anything in an ordinary magazine be superior to what has been happening in the academic journals, where cold fusion has had nothing but replications and confirmations, and not a single critical article in half a decade? NPOV is better served by, for example, having more than one favorite book, as professional electrochemists studying the field do. If you think the "best" book is one which is critical, then doesn't that mean you're biased in the same way?

I have several semesters of college chemistry and slightly less physics. I read about cold fusion a few weeks after the announcement in 1989, and have been trying to follow it closely ever since. That's been the only way my point of view has developed. I've never worked in fusion or electrochemistry either. 99.55.161.190 (talk) 21:13, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I consider this last post insulting, so I won't respond to it. Olorinish (talk) 21:32, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

How did I insult you? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. If you tell me what offended you and why, I will gladly re-word it because I don't want to lose the benefit of discussion about these topics. 99.55.161.190 (talk) 21:42, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

If you figure it out, let me know. If you don't, there are plenty of other people who like to discuss this stuff. You can talk with them. Olorinish (talk) 21:58, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that this sentence was taken personally by Olorinish : "I believe the controversy is, at root, caused by the financial interests of "big science" plasma fusion researchers who have been promising commercial viability since the 1950s but have been unable to deliver because of too many fast neutrons. " You may want to rephrase it. Pcarbonn (talk) 22:01, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I removed that sentence; was that it? 99.56.136.254 (talk) 04:05, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

In real life, if someone wanted to know how they offended you, would you refuse to tell them? 99.27.134.160 (talk) 16:27, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Since I suspect all of the edits in this section with IP signatures could be from a banned user , I request that all editors of my talk page do so using a wikipedia account. They are easy to create, so I don't think that is too much to ask. Olorinish (talk) 15:33, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Personal Attack

Olorinish, I was wondering if you could help me deal with a personal attack. I want to report this guy to the appropriate committee or administrator but I'm not particularly familiar with the Misplaced Pages processes and I don't know where to begin.

After discussing the fallacious name "pro-choice" and suggesting it be replaced in accordance with WP:NPOV on the page Talk:Abortion, User:Objectivist, who wasn't even part of the discussion anyway, wrote an extremely long and bizarre personal attack on my talk page.(Huey45 (talk) 09:30, 27 June 2010 (UTC))

Reply to your reversing my edit to the article on cold fusion

Hi Olorinish, I've added a reply to the talk page for cold fusion in connection with your reversing a recent edit of mine.

Civility

Hi Olorinish,

because you are always quick to highlight any edits of mine that you think are not civil. I would like to show you what some users you know are capable of: User_talk:AndyTheGrump#Only_Warning. I just didn't want you to miss an opportunity to raise you finger. --POVbrigand (talk) 13:43, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

It appears that it has been addressed by the higher-ups. I don't see any benefit in me doing anything at this point. I will say that civility is part of the integrity of Misplaced Pages, so it is incorrect to say that integrity is more important than civility. Olorinish (talk) 01:21, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

edit References to Pseudoscience Should Be Moved to Historical Footnotes

Query to the Scientific Community:

To the Directors of Physics Departments,

LENR - Low Energy Nuclear Reaction and Widom Larson Theory, aka Condensed Matter Nuclear, historically misnamed "Cold Fusion"

1) Is this science or pathological science? 2) Do you offer a class in this discipline? If so, please provide information. 3) Are you developing a curriculum of this science? If so, when will you offer it? 4) What peer review journals do you source in this field?

Olorinish, P>S> 1) Any suggestions before I move forward with this? 2) Is this direction of query able to yield opinions the Misplaced Pages forum on Cold Fusion may value?

Thank you for your time,

Gregory Goble gbgoble@gmail.com (415) 724-6702--Gregory Goble (talk) 22:13, 26 December 2011 (UTC)