Those advancing positions based on the 2004 Department of Energy Report need to understand that under verifiability policy, Wikipedia prefers scholarly works and reliable secondary sources, such as journals with a reputation for fact checking, over primary sources such as government reports when dealing with scientific subjects. Government agencies are inherently political, and are not the most reliable source of information on a topic such as cold fusion. Jehochman Talk 00:37, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
All of these statements have been moved here by the clerk active on this case because of concerns they do not follow evidence guidelines.--Tznkai (talk) 01:07, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
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Open letter to ScienceApologist: I’m not so sure the arbiters will consider withdrawn evidence. Why don’t you do the following: 1) restore your evidence, and 2) simply invite Jehochman to “do something to himself that isn’t generally considered to even be physically possible” or some other such glancing insult. A little venting can be therapeutic at times. Greg L (talk) 02:20, 17 November 2008 (UTC) |
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I am quite surprised to see this arbitration request, nonetheless it getting accepted. I've been on the cold fusion page for quite some time (mostly just on the talk page) and I've seen far more POV pushing from ScienceApologist than I have Pcarbonn. Perhaps it's not as visible because ScienceApologist might be percieved as "defending the mainstream" and I'd imagine he'd contend that to be his "mission". But I really get the impression that his ideal form of the article would leave out a lot of significant, verifiable and pertinent information. Which would be easier to do if people that opposed this were gone. So I see this request as just a strong-armed extension of ScienceApologist's POV-pushing. He probably doesn't see it that way. And in all honesty, he probably doesn't think of it that way. But there really are no grounds for action here, and I think this request is a waste of the arbitrators' time, and an abuse of process. |
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Fringe advocacy[edit]Cold fusion (CF) is a fringe field which has been subject to advocacy, including from clearly conflicted editors such as JedRothwell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), webmaster of the pro-CF website lenr-canr.org. Examples include [1] where the conclusion of the 2004 DoE review (that little has changed) is "balanced" by a cherry-picked sentence from the middle of the review stating that "The nearly unanimous opinion of the reviewers was that funding agencies should entertain individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues relevant to the question of whether or not there is anomalous energy production in Pd/D systems, or whether or not D-D fusion reactions occur at energies on the order of a few eV." and misrepresented as if it were a part of the conclusion, which it is not. This phrase is pretty empty, in fact, since I would challenge to to find any area of scientific research where any government funding body would do anything but encourage "individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues" relevant to any question of any importance at all. The conclusion is that nothing has changed since 1989. And that is a very serious blow to the CF researchers, who want to present this as an emerging field. Article status[edit]Largely as a result of the activities of these individuals, Cold fusion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) was demoted from FA in January 2006, and has at least twice been reverted to the FA version to roll back extensive abusive advocacy. Featured article status requires extensive peer-review, and the FA version was an accurate reflection of the mainstream view, according to a friend of mine who is a full professor at an English university and was in one of Fleischmann's labs in 1989, taking some part in the experiments. So, the FA version is my personal benchmark for neutrality on this subject. As a point of principle I do not think we should apply Good Article to articles where content is still a matter of heated dispute, as GA does not really address the quality of the article (far too few people are involved in reviewing the content), only conformance to manual of style. I also think that a defensible maintenance tag (e.g. neutrality, balance) should automatically result in removal of GA status. Conspicuous failure of mediation[edit]The article was the subject of a lengthy mediation. By virtue of having more time to spend and more obsessive interest in the subject, Pcarbonn was the major author of the resultant content. Instead of reining in a tendentious editor, mediation actively enabled the skewing of content towards a fringe view. I believe this is a conspicuous failure of the mediation process and should be investigated in detail by the mediation committee and arbitration committee. The mainstream view[edit]Physics Today is a mainstream publication and discussions there largely reflect the mainstream view. [2] shows that before the DoE review people were fair (as was the FA version WP article) in acknowledging that cold fusion is not so much an imaginary phenomenon as one which lacks significant support due to fundamental evidential and scientific weaknesses. Note the lead to that article: "Whether outraged or supportive about DOE's planned reevaluation of cold fusion, most scientists remain deeply skeptical that it's real".
But the DoE report clearly showed that the necessary condition we understand things is not met. This is the main finding of the DoE review, to my reading, that without getting the basic science right and proposing a credible mechanism by which the effect can work, they will not get what they want. How did Physics Today cover the hotly contended issue of the DoE review? The same author wrote as follows:
Now, I would invite the arbitrators to review the current article and Pcarbonn's contributions and see how consistent they are, on the specific issue of the interpretation of the DoE review, with that mainstream (read: pro-WP:NPOV) interpretation. That is, I think, the crucial issue here. As an aside, I would note that quoting the above paragraph in the article was resisted to an almost hysterical degree by the CF advocates, and indeed this summary of the Physics Today article on the DoE review is not quoted in the article as it stands today. Pcarbonn's assertion that "most scientists" amounts to unverifiable WP:WEASEL words is objectively false in this case: we have at least one mainstream source which says precisely that, it's just that the CF advocates will not allow us to quote it; it has been removed every time it's been inserted and was vehemently resisted during mediation. I would argue that there will be few better sources than Physics Today to give Wikipedia a clear idea of how the DoE report (a primary source) was received by the mainstream scientific community and should therefore be described by us. Mainstream sources will only very occasionally revisit fields which have been identified as rejected, unless there is major new work and we (Wikipedia) will only know if such changes in view have happened when there are overview articles in mainstream journals which tell us that the dominant view has shifted. Looking at articles by prominent holdouts is actively unhelpful because they are holdouts, their view cannot be held to support or deny the mainstream acceptance of that view. And this is a very common problem in articles on fringe subjects - advocates for the fringe view will pile up huge numbers of quotes from advocates in order to try to swamp the documented fact that the field's dominant thesis is generally regarded as unproven or even outright false. The central questions in respect of Pcarbonn seem to me to be:
WP:AGF encourages to allow for the fact that Pcarbonn's actions may genuinely be the result of the relatively common misconception that WP is like academic publishing, where you are positively encouraged to draw novel syntheses. If Pierre Carbonnel wrote an overview of the subject in the terms that Pcarbonn writes on Wikipedia, this would absolutely not violate the policies and norms of academic writing, whether or not it passed peer review, but it does, in my view violate Wikipedia's policies, because on Wikipedia we are not subject matter experts and are not, therefore, permitted to give ourselves the role of a peer review panel, only of editors.
Original research, undue weight, management of same[edit]Compare:
As far as Wikipedia and this arbitration goes, this is perfectly emblematic of the problem.
We are told that "most scientists" is weasel words, but what about "in professional settings?" What we have here is a paragraph from the same current version of the article, which clearly asserts parity of esteem between those active in the fringe field, and the mainstream view. And that is a massive failing. And the article is like that despite lengthy mediation, the involvement of large numbers of editors, a high profile blowup following Pcarbonn's description of his "victory" in the fringe advocates' house journal and so on. The preference for citing primary sources rather than overview sources which demonstrate the mainstream view is evident consistently. Example: [4] which removes commentary from the BBC, Physics World and Physics Today. This is completely counter to Wikipedia policy, which actively prefers secondary or overview sources over primary sources precisely because of the need to control this kind of advocacy. So, something is clearly very badly broken in the way the community is managing this content dispute, which is similar to many others. I may be wrong in this by my reading of WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NOR, we should, in discussing the DoE review, cite a mainstream secondary source rather than a primary source. And whichever source we use, we should ensure that what we say accurately reflects the overall tone of the source, which would imply using the conclusion (from a primary source) or the lead (from a journalistic source). Instead we have done the very worst possible thing, which is to synthesis something from a paragraph in the body of the report which implies significant support for a verifiably fringe field. This is why I am not active on this article. I simply do not trust myself to retain my temper. Anybody who can in all conscience support the use of a synthesised argument obscuring the overall tone ("nothing has changed") in favour of boosting the credibility of the fringe field of "low energy nuclear research" and in the lead of a supposedly good article, should, in my view, be banned from editing any article on subjects of this kind. ArbCom does not rule on content. This is not about content. It's about the wilful and pretty close to fraudulent abuse of sources in violation of core policy. Pcarbonn is a "mission poster"[edit]Pcarbonn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has admitted both here in an external forum [5] that his goal on Wikipedia is to change the thrust of the article on cold fusion to better reflect what is without question a minority view. This minority is reasonably well organised and has its "house journal", New Energy Times, in which advocacy is evident specifically in respect of the Wikipedia article: [6] Pcarbonn explicitly sees this as a "battle": [7] and sees that he has "won" the battle, which is an accurate perception, the two main problems being that (a) he should not have brought the battle here in the first place and (b) the battle is to violate core policy so should not have been won. A review of his contributions will show little if any involvement outside of the area of cold fusion, i.e. Pcarbonn is a single purpose account. He has displayed many of the classic attributes of the POV-pusher, including creating a POV-fork at 2004 DoE panel on cold fusion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) which covers the DoE panel in terms which are flattering to the cherry-picked supportive statements form the DoE panel. Examples:
WP:TRUTH[edit]Pcarbonn's evidence above is yet another example of asserting WP:TRUTH versus WP:NPOV, arguing his personal interpretation of primary sources (forbidden per WP:NOR) instead of the mainstream view as seen in mainstream sources and as documented by the Department of Energy review, with attendant discussion of that review also in mainstream sources. Indeed, selective interpretation of the DoE review and advocacy for the use of cherry-picked sentences rather than its high-level overview, was a bone of contention in the mediation case. In mainstream science, cold fusion falls somewhere between ignored and derided. The article as Pcarbonn rewrote it, largely on his own since his constant argumentation and tens of thousands of words of repetitive argument form primary sources drove away anyone who did not have, as he evidently does, months to spend on this one subject, more or less hides this fact. This is an arbitration case, arbitration cases do not address content. Instead they address how content is edited, and whether that is in line with our core policies, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV and WP:V. What Pcarbonn advocates is certainly verifiable, although often from dubious sources (i.e. sources that have a systemic bias towards the field and are not considered reliable outside of the field). It does not, however, meet the requirements for neutrality, and often skirts (and I would argue crosses) the boundaries of novel synthesis. Note above that he argues from primary sources about the validity of the field, not about how it is received in the mainstream community, which is the crucial question here. A look at Remote viewing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) will show that it is perfectly possible to write an article from sources which asserts that it is possible to view objects at a remote site using parapsychological powers. The problem, of course, is that virtually every scientist in the word will call it nonsense. So we have a large number of sources which are extremely low impact factor, and often walled gardens, versus a small number of very high profile documents that show the field to be pretty much universally ignored. You will not get a paper in Nature saying "cold fusion still unproven", you might get an overview in Physics Today noting that the last review still found significant deficiencies in the basic science. Which is what happened. So counting the number of peer-reviewed CF papers is always going to violate WP:UNDUE and WP:SYN, as an assertion that this somehow amounts to acceptance where no such acceptance can be attributed to a valid authority. It does not matter how many times Uri Geller bends the spoon, and how many others claim also to be able to bend spoons, spoon bending will not become accepted by the scientific community until there a credible and reproducible mechanism is documented. So with CF. It matters not how many duplicate the experiment and produce anomalous heat, without a credible mechanism (the basic science) it will not be accepted. It would not be accepted anyway, but the highly public Fleischmann & Pons business means that it is especially so with this particular field. Inadequate controls on missionaries[edit]The core question for arbitration is: does Pcarbonn's involvement serve to promote a neutral point of view, or to move us away from it. Has Pcarbonn's involvement made it easier or harder for Wikipedia editors to document a fringe field in ways that make it clear that it is a fringe field, and why it is so, and will his continued involvement be conducive to maintaining that position or will his continued involvement serve to move Wikipedia content further away from reflecting the mainstream view. I would say that his influence and actions are and always have been counter-policy. It would, however, be entirely legitimate in another venue such as the letters pages of scientific journals. There is nothing evil about challenging mainstream scientists to think again about a rejected field, but Wikipedia is not the place to do it. Even after it was shown (to my satisfaction) that Pcarbonn is here principally to violate our guidelines in favour of a minority view for which he has sympathy, it was not possible to agree any form of control over that behaviour because he was polite in doing so. Wikipedia currently has no effective method to control people who are single-issue obsessives, since those who resist them and support the mainstream tend to have hundreds of separate single-issue obsessives to deal with, one or two per article, leading to burnout. And let's be clear here, Pcarbonn is far from the worst offender in this line, other articles have much worse missionaries. That we have tried and failed to control the issue of long-term civil POV-pushing is obvious, since the problem still exists (hence this arbitration) despite the existence of past arbitrations and guidelines such as WP:FRINGE. The history of WP:UNDUE also shows attempts by fringe advocates to change core policy in order to further support their behaviour. Even if ArbCom banishes Pcarbonn to outer darkness, that core problem will not be fixed. It needs to be fixed by giving specific guidance and hopefully teeth. As the homeopathy case shows, the missionaries are becoming expert Wikilawyers as well and will ruthlessly exploit any ambiguity. The Wikipedia community, and the admin community, is not homogeneous, and fringe advocacy is a substantial minority view, sufficient in some cases to prevent consensus to enforce core policy. Guy (Help!) 11:43, 15 November 2008 (UTC) |
Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable_sources says "In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers".
Here is what the most reliable sources say according to this ranking and WP:PSTS:
1a books published in University press:
1b primary reputable peer-reviewed papers:
1c secondary reputable peer-reviewed papers:
The 2004 DOE report and other less reliable sources, including magazines such as PhysicsToday cited by JzG below, also indicate an ongoing scientific controversy. See Ranking of sources per reliability and our CF article. The author of the leading skeptic book cited above, Bob Park, recently said that 'there are some curious reports - not cold fusion, but people may be seeing some unexpected low-energy nuclear reactions'. This was published in Chemistry world, i.e. not a journal dedicated to cold fusion.[11]
The peer-reviewed journals that have published favorable articles on cold fusion are not dedicated to cold fusion, and are not at the bottom of the Impact Factor list, but in the top third or better, overall or within their category. These are further indication that the scientific controversy is ongoing. Here is what I found on the ISI website with some links to articles:
The lowest impact factor of these, 1.678, is in the 2291st place overall, just a shade below one third overall (6417 journals in total --> 1/3 = 2139) So, these journals should be seen as reliable and notable enough for wikipedia. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:17, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
There is a disagreement on whether the 2004 DOE report indicates an ongoing controversy. Here is what it actually says:
Conclusion of section 1 : Two-thirds of the reviewers commenting on Charge Element 1 did not feel the evidence was conclusive for low energy nuclear reactions, one found the evidence convincing, and the remainder indicated they were somewhat convinced. Many reviewers noted that poor experiment design, documentation, background control and other similar issues hampered the understanding and interpretation of the results presented.
Conclusion of section 2 :The preponderance of the reviewers’ evaluations indicated that Charge Element 2, the occurrence of low energy nuclear reactions, is not conclusively demonstrated by the evidence presented. One reviewer believed that the occurrence was demonstrated, and several reviewers did not address the question.
Conclusion of section 3 : The nearly unanimous opinion of the reviewers was that funding agencies should entertain individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues relevant to the question of whether or not there is anomalous energy production in Pd/D systems, or whether or not D-D fusion reactions occur at energies on the order of a few eV. These proposals should meet accepted scientific standards, and undergo the rigors of peer review. No reviewer recommended a focused federally funded program for low energy nuclear reactions.
Final conclusion : While significant progress has been made in the sophistication of calorimeters since the review of this subject in 1989, the conclusions reached by the reviewers today are similar to those found in the 1989 review.
The current reviewers identified a number of basic science research areas that could be helpful in resolving some of the controversies in the field, two of which were: 1) material science aspects of deuterated metals using modern characterization techniques, and 2) the study of particles reportedly emitted from deuterated foils using state-of-the-art apparatus and methods. The reviewers believed that this field would benefit from the peer-review processes associated with proposal submission to agencies and paper submission to archival journals.
"Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world." "Visitors do not need specialized qualifications to contribute, since their primary role is to write articles that cover existing knowledge; this means that people of all ages and cultural and social backgrounds can write Wikipedia articles." (Wikipedia:About)
"Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia; there is no practical limit to the number of topics it can cover, or the total amount of content, other than verifiability and the other points presented on this page." "Some topics are covered by print encyclopedias only in short, static articles; however, because Wikipedia does not require paper, we can include more information, provide more external links, update more quickly, and so on." [19]
"Content hosted in Wikipedia is not Propaganda, advocacy, or recruitment of any kind, commercial, political, religious, or otherwise. Of course, an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view." "All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing significant views fairly, proportionately, and without bias." [20]
The to-do list for cold fusion includes "add a summary from the "philosophy of science" perspective, e.g based on Lewenstein (p. 13-18)", a point which I have added myself.[21]. Lewenstein looks at the controversy on cold fusion to find out how science is actually practised.
As User:Eubulides says below, the literature about the cold fusion controversy is separate from the scientific litterature on cold fusion, and provides a different, usefull perspective on the sociological aspects of this scientific topic, and of how science is practised. Having not read this literature in detail, I do not feel qualified to write such a summary. I do know however that the demarcation problem between science and non-science is not resolved, and that the literature on the cold fusion controversy is similarly equivocal. In my view, there is no basis for the view that the sociological controversy should be presented but the scientific one shouldn't. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:57, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
Google Search returns results adapted to its user, if it knows him. When I log out of Google and search for "cold fusion", the top result that I get is our wikipedia article.
It is not the Physics Today article, as Jehochnan suggests. The article that he considers "probably the most authoritative" is a news article. Here is what WP:RS has to say : "For information about academic topics, such as physics or ancient history, scholarly sources are preferred over news stories. Newspapers tend to misrepresent results, leaving out crucial details and reporting discoveries out of context. For example, news reports often fail to adequately report methodology, errors, risks, and costs associated with a new scientific result or medical treatment." Their reporting of the 2004 DOE report is the perfect example of that. It should not be considered as the most reliable source.
I have never been blocked, for WP:3RR or otherwise. I have always accepted participation in dispute resolution mechanisms. The article has been listed as GA by the community. There is simply no way for me to WP:own this controversial article. Those who want to criticize my edits should use diffs, not the current version of the article or of its lead.
I have never deleted a skeptical source (I have actually added several [22][23][24][25][26][27] [28]) We may have missed some skeptical, reliable sources, but it is unlikely in view of the many editors who have contributed to the article.
SA has proposed a WP:MAINSTREAM guideline.
He says : "Wikipedia should strive for articles that would be appreciated as being of the highest quality by a consensus of experts. To accomplish this goal, reliable sources need to be used to verify content." I fully support that. I'm puzzled as to why, when such experts actually meet to review cold fusion, such as the 2004 DOE panel, he is the first one to censor or modify what they say, arguing that it would be POV-pushing.(e.g., just in November: [29][30][31][32]) Surely, such experts would be pleased if we were to quote their report verbatim.
The reason becomes clear in the next sentence in his proposed guideline. He says "Beyond this, it is also necessary that subjects be handled as they are realized in the mainstream." This is very dubious. First of all, "mainstream" is a WP:Weasel word that does not refer to reliable, verifiable source. Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that such "mainstream" handles the topic in a way "that would be appreciated as being of the highest quality by a consensus of expert".
What are the evidence for his view ? Here are some possible meaning for the word "mainstream":
I welcome any supporting evidence that his proposed guideline on "mainstream" is not contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia.
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Response to Jehochman[edit]I would like to take this opportunity to respond to Jehochman’s derrogatory comment about me presented as some sore of ‘evidence’ of Pcarbonn’s bias (POV) problem. J states that I have been involved in COI editing. This is insulting and demeaning. I was asked by email from Steven Krivit, editor of New Energy times, to participate in editing the Wiki page on cold fusion to supply balance to the article, as it was thought at the time to be to strongly ‘pro’ CF. I decided I would help, primarily by adding to the already existing section entitled ‘Criticisms’. The reason Krivit asked me is because I am the only technical skeptic he knows in the field. I am a technical skeptic since I have published a conventional explanation of apparent excess heat, one of the primary effects used to support CF claims, and two rebuttals to comments suggesting my explanation was valueless. If my explanation is correct, and no one has challenged the base of it, there are no claims of apparent excess heat, past or present, that can simply be accepted as they are presented. The only other technical skeptic I know of in the post-2000 timeframe was W. Brian Clarke, who passed away in 2002. My objective in editing the Wiki CF page was to get the technical criticisms currently in force into the article. Prior to my involvement, the only ‘criticisms’ included in the article were old ones that had been addressed, giving the reader the impression that CF researchers had answered all criticisms and thus CF should be considered a valid field of research. In my editing, I have attempted to maintain the scientific practice of presenting one’s own work in the third person neutrally. The edits cited by J are examples of this, where I was simply correcting the article to reflect the actual events. This is not ‘COI’. I contend that if you substitute any name you like for mine in the text, you will see that the presentation is neutral but factual. The idea that one cannot write about one’s work without POV-pushing or having a COI is ridiculous. Half of the scientific literature wouldn’t exist if that were a valid thought process. If J thinks I have pushed myself, he should take those sections he finds offensive, replace my name with ‘X’, and post it as an example of how ‘X’ is being misrepresented or overly attributed or whatever. J also lists my last edit dates. I’m not sure what he is trying to prove with that, but I had ceased editing for awhile because I didn’t have anything else to add to the ongoing discussion. I am waiting until the more recent group of editors gets past the Intro and on to sections I am interested in before I begin doing more. (It is painful to see how much effort has had to be expended in just the Intro section!) Regarding Pcarbonn[edit]With regards to Pcarbonn’s editing, I have had serious difficulties with him. He has block deleted most of my additions to the article (the only one he hasn’t done away with at this point was my addition of a description of Clarke’s work) (see the changes I added on Sept. 17, then look at what Pcarbonn did to them). He continues this to this day with his most recent edit of 17 Nov. including deletion of a small section I added to the article that provided citation as to the fringe status of CF. He has also shunted most of my criticisms based on my own work into a sub-article, a tactic he used the last time I was involved in this page (c. 2005-6), where he created a ‘Cold Fusion Controversy’ page to discuss the crticisms, and which now no longer exists. I am sure he hoped to do that again in the future with the ‘calorimetery in cold fusion’ page. He prefers to use strict interpretation of Wiki policies to justify his deletions, primarily requiring me to cite refernces for everything. However, as noted in the CF Talk page discussions, and on this page as well, CF has been a pariah field since c. 1994. That means there are almost NO negative technical articles in the literature since that time. Available are my work, Clarke’s work, and the Jones and Hansen and Shkedi contributions, as opposed to copiuos pro-CF articles, most published in obscure places but a few in mainline journals. There are however the basic criticisms of all pathological or pseudoscience, that of working near the limits of the techniques used and of simply misinterpreting data. I tried to explain these points, which did not have any citations attached because they are basic chemistry concerns, and was block deleted. When I focused on one topic and tried to provide examples of how contamination had been found by a worker (Scott Little) who doesn’t publish much by citing a Web paper he had posted, strictly as an example as per Wiki policy on such materials, Pcarbonn challenged the ‘expert’ status of Little by claiming he had published no papers in the field. When I cited one, he P said it didn’t count because it was in a Proceedings (Proceedings are not preferred Wiki sources, but DO count to demostrate a worker is active and contributing in a given field). We have had extensive discussions of two of the four major criticisms I added, and I am dissatisfied with the article at this point because the crticisms are not fairly included, but Pcarbonn will not allow any edit I make to stand. I was about to give up until the most recent group of editors arrived and began noting Pcarbonn’s extreme bias towards the supposed reality of cold fusion. I don’t personally feel Pcarbonn has to be totally banned from editing this page. He has a POV, and that POV is the ‘pro’ side. As long as the ‘con’ side is allowed in, and the historical facts are fairly represented (especially about how post-1994, mainline science moved on and stopped thinking about CF), then I think things would be fine. I have previously suggested that Pcarbonn be restricted to editing the ‘pro’ and historical sections of the article. Other editors will keep me in line with Wiki policies if I stray a bit, but I don’t believe they will block delete anti-CF commentary when is is technically justified. If he is allowed to continue as he has done to date, I simply give up. I don’t have the time to fight a word-by-word battle to add something to a Wiki article. |
I will be enforcing the evidence guidelines fairly strictly: "Keep your evidence to a maximum of 1000 words and 100 diffs. Evidence longer than this will be refactored or removed entirely." Furthermore, please ensure that your comments on the evidence page is in fact, evidence, and is not better suited as a talk page comment, or in the workshop page.--Tznkai (talk) 01:24, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Tznkai, I understand that you have to cut things down. I have presented evidence which goes well over the word count, though not the diff count. I ask that you leave it. I believe that the limits exist so that people will be succinct, while still having enough space. But that is for the average party to an Arbitration Committee case. However, ScienceApologist is not an average party. There is much, much more evidence concerning him. I believe that the sections are succinct, and all of them are relevant (several were already cut). Also, the quotations will make it easier for the arbitrators, because often the relevant quotes are hard to find in the diffs. Durga's Trident (talk) 01:38, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
| “ | So there matters stand: no cold fusion researcher has been able to dispel the stigma of “pathological science” by rigorously and reproducibly demonstrating effects sufficiently large to exclude the possibility of error (for example, by constructing a working power generator), nor does it seem possible to conclude unequivocally that all the apparently anomalous behavior can be attributed to error. | ” |
| “ | There are clear differences between our two cases: whereas the phlogiston controversy involved choosing the best theoretical framework to rationalize a set of experimental observations, with cold fusions there are essentially no theoretical frameworks among which to choose. Instead we have a set of observations that cannot be rationalized in terms of existing standard theory, and need to decide whether they (or some fraction thereof) are real anomalies that require new ideas, or mere mistakes. The majority of the scientific community has (explicitly or implicitly) opted for the second interpretation, just as the majority decided against phlogiston at the end of the 18th century. It is easy, but (as we have tried to show) much too simplistic, to invoke irrationality to explain this persistence of heterodoxy. Instead, these two cases illustrate that, once the human imagination has conceived an idea, it can sometimes be very difficult to prove its non-existence. | ” |
Hope this helps. Pcap ping 06:21, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Because this case has come to have so many facets, there may be a tendency to conflate the isuues. I'm not in a situation right now where I can comment extensively but these are some concerns I had:
These points /comments are probably obvious but they do concern me.(olive (talk) 23:54, 24 November 2008 (UTC))
My attempt at mentoring SA did not fail because of his unwillingness to be mentored or reform. ... so... why did it fail? Dlabtot (talk) 15:55, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
I have stayed out of this whole ArbCom for a number of reasons, mostly because the subject doesn't interest me and I don't like to get involved in other people's disputes, but something's terribly wrong here. I followed another link and ended up on the Evidence page and found whole sections of editor comments that contained hardly a mention of evidence related to Cold Fusion, but were almost entirely attacks against SA. Mark what I say now: I am NOT defending SA's many problems. They are indeed many.
I am addressing another point, and that is that I find it shocking that such comments - that are beside the point and are pure ad hominem attacks - are allowed to remain. The clerk should be (1) deleting them, (2) warning the editors, (3) reporting those editors for violations of NPA, and (4) possibly blocking them from th. is ArCom. If this were an RfC/U, it would be a very different matter, but this is supposed to be about Cold fusion, and ad hominem attacks are improper. An ArCom should not be a free for all where piling on and NPA policy violations are allowed without any whistle being blown by the referees (clerk and ArbCom members). Since when have ArbComs become lawless zones where our policies do not apply? This has been happening for some time now and it needs to stop. -- Fyslee / talk 18:37, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
My initial alarm was raised by reading this section (not just the sock section), which has nothing to do with Cold fusion, but is exclusively a collection of diffs that could be used in any situation against SA. If the situation had been different, it would be admissible evidence, but here it's just a piling on type of attack:
This evidence has nothing to do with this case. It doesn't even mention Cold fusion a single time and should be deleted, MaxPont warned for gross personal attacks, banned from participation in this ArbCom, and possibly from any contact with SA anywhere at Wikipedia, considering the personal animosity revealed here.
While it's true that the Committee can do whatever it wants here, I am appealing for some justice. In any court of law such unrelated evidence would be thrown out of court. This amounts to a court case where someone is accused of murder, then entering evidence that they once stole a peach from a neighbors tree, then convicting them of the murder based on that evidence. The "peach" matter has nothing to do with the "murder" charge and is inadmissible as evidence. Same here. SA should be judged for his behavior in the Cold fusion matter, not for other crimes (which are many, and for which he has been punished many times).
I am definitely not defending SA in this or any other case. I am strictly making an appeal for Committee members to solely use evidence that is directly related to the Cold fusion matter in this case. -- Fyslee / talk 03:39, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
I won't go into specifics because I'm working partially on a gut feeling, but the posting of evidence by a well-known antagonist of ScienceApologist (using a sock), which is then appropriated and resposted by a random editor with no interest here beyond nailing ScienceApologist, is a lame and essentially cynical gaming of the system. But I do think that at this point, the Arbs can sort this out for themselves. Leave 'em to it. MastCell Talk 05:29, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
There's a fine line here. Being a subject at ArbCom means that your actions are justifiably under a spotlight. It doesn't mean that every editor who has a grudge against you gets a few free kicks - or at least, it shouldn't. But I'm happy to let the Arbs sort it out - they're pretty good at it. MastCell Talk 05:52, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
I reviewed contributions on the evidence and evidence talk page as of the time stamp of my signature. FloNight♥♥♥ 16:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)